From Edge to Edge
by The Button Harlequin
Summary: Bucky is a demon that grants wishes in exchange for souls. Steve is 7 when he visits, but 17 when Bucky comes to collect. Bucky keeps making excuses for why he keeps putting off collecting, until an ultimatum is given: take Steve Rogers soul or take his place in Hell. Bucky chooses the former. Steve is not going to take that. Violence, depictions of Hell, Stucky, lots of characters
1. Chapter 1

_**From Edge to Edge**_

_**A Supernatural Avengers AU**_

_**Inspired by a GLORIOUS Tumblr prompt**_

_**A/N: **_FUCK IT I LOVE IT! THIS PROMPT BROUGHT ME LIFE!

_**Disclaimer**_: Don't own, don't gain. Simply to entertain.

_**From Edge to Edge**_

_**Chapter 1: Across the Road**_

_**Winter, 1997**_

_Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! _The icy footsteps echoed in the darkness of a flickering flashlight clamped in the frozen palms of a seven year old skinny boy, sickly enough that the blind could see it and the deaf could hear his end approaching. The boy was dressed in what could only be described as rags and well cared for hand-me-downs. His only bar against the bitter hungry wind was a worn through man's coat with a patch at both elbows and a hole in the left pocket. Nothing remarkable. Nothing anyone would care about looking twice at. Nothing that would be a surprise if he suddenly keeled over and died of nothing but a sharp shadow and a clever breeze.

Steve used this to his advantage. It was something that was needed to achieve the end goal anyways. And it was something he was grateful for every day of his life afterwards.

Steve always remembered that night clearly, always would. It was cold, the coldest night possible in mid December with the snow drifting down in swollen balls of cottony ice. It would be a wonder if Steve didn't die _before_ he arrived at his destination, never mind that he knew he was dying afterwards.

Arrive he did. Two bus changes, three dollars from a sympathetic runaway and a small fainting spell across the way of a kind bag lady later, his footsteps halted at a gravel rough road smoothed down by decades of heavy trucks and hitchhikers and people who just didn't know how to read a map. At the end of this road was an intersection.

"The crossroads…" They were the first words to be uttered in exactly three hours and forty-four minutes by Steve, his voice dry and hurting from the winter that sucked out the very life out of a person's body. That didn't matter though.

Steve continued to the very center of the crossroads, his weak flashlight providing the only sliver of comfort of light, as even the moon had hidden itself away from Steve behind lonely black and gray clouds. Steve couldn't blame it. He'd hide away from such a sight too if given the choice.

In the other hand was a small wooden box, it's only inhabitants a small group of tin soldiers, a lock of golden blonde hair, a bag of herbs that the hoodoo man from E3 said would do the trick and a picture of Steve on one of his good days, the one his Mama liked so much. His pinched cheeks were a healthy pink that day instead of their usual marble pallor, his hair swept back from his broad forehead and not sweat soaked from fever. He was smiling up into the camera, truthfully happy and drawing the angry cat that lived with Mrs. Rivers down the hall. It was honestly the only picture he had that his mother kept in her purse. All the other ones of his siblings and his father and his Mama's parents were already long taken down and buried somewhere in a silk lined picture album at the bottom of a pine box in storage. Steve hoped that if there was a God out there, that he would cover their eyes from what he was about to do.

Steve knelt down in the hard dirt and used a flat rock to pry the earth open enough to place the box, body and heart and soul that it contained, into the space and buried it before he could change his mind. Steve stood back from the spot and trembled as he worked up the courage to look around the crossroads for his results. The hoodoo man hadn't said if magic words needed to be spoken or if he had to cut his wrist like in those scary movies he wasn't allowed to watch, but the rock had cut his hand a little bit around the inside of his knuckles, maybe that would be enough –

"Aw, how cute." Steve whipped his head around (bad idea, his world went physically spinning) but righted himself just in time to see a man just standing there. At the southern corner of the crossroads was a truly harsh looking man, handsome in his dark features and five days stubble and notably expensive suit, the kind that the men that his mother sometimes went out with always wore. "A little boy wants to know what it takes to make a deal with a demon."

Steve didn't need to know, because the hoodoo man from E3 told him. No, that's not what kept his mouth shut, so much as the black abyss that were the man's (_demon's!_) eyes. Not an inch of humanity was in that creature, Steve could tell, but he looked smart enough to talk to.

"I – I already k-k-know!" Steve shouted as he stammered and then recoiled at the volume, shocked by his own rudeness. Certainly the man was a demon, but that didn't call for bad manners (his mother raised him better than that after all). "I'm sorry," Steve looked at the rubber boots on his feet in shame, the sizes too big but the rips small enough not to matter, "It was rude of me to yell."

For a moment there was only silence. Then, what could only be described as a raucous laughter that made it's way up from the belly to shock itself into life came from the man and Steve just couldn't look away when he saw that the man was holding his gut like he was just stabbed, but he couldn't have been because Steve was right there and Steve certainly didn't see anything, but what could have made the man – no demon! – want to just bend over and clutch at his stomach because he really couldn't be laughing could he? Did demons laugh? The hoodoo man didn't say if a demon laughing at you was part of the deal, but if it was then Steve passed he guessed but he was getting really nervous now and things weren't going as planned, he just wanted to make his deal and get it over with, just _why_ did this always have to happen to him –

"Whoa, whoa there buddy!" The man/demon managed to giggle out between wheezy breaths (whoa, demons breathed? Did that mean that they were still alive then, when they – you know – Steve didn't really want to think about it). "Don't go freaking out on me now! It's okay, I never – Father of Satan, I just can't remember the last time that someone actually _apologized_ to me. And for something that didn't even matter? Tainted blood, that was something I wasn't expecting!"

"It does matter though," Steve argued, his brow furrowed and his hunched shoulders stubborn, "My Mama always said that you should always be polite to people because you never know."

There was a pause. "Never know what?" the demon asked, like he didn't care but Steve could just tell that he was curious.

"I don't know," Steve answered truthfully, shuffling his feet to try and get some feeling back into them and the cold making it difficult, "She never said. She always just said to be polite because you never know."

The demon chuckled low this time, and Steve got the feeling that he just couldn't believe what he was hearing. That was just what Steve thought though, so he really couldn't say.

"Alright then little boy," the demon said after a moment, all serious and business and nothing like he was before. Steve could see the shift from the scarred carelessness to the icy monster that he was supposed to be and Steve couldn't help but miss the man he was from before. "Just what is it that you want from a demon so badly that you would come here, in the middle of the night, on the winter solstice, just before a blizzard was set to explode around here? You have an early death wish, kid?"

Steve gulped down a trickle of saliva caught in his desert throat, coughing in discomfort and nearly hacking up a lung in his efforts. When he finally calmed down the demon was just watching from his station at the southern corner, bored and uncaring.

"I," Steve took a few harsh breaths from the frigid air, the oxygen feeling like knives and daggers in his aching body, "I want my Mama to live and be healthy! No more sickness and she's not tired from her work when she gets home and she lives a long and healthy and happy life."

There's another pause in the conversation, the only sounds puncturing the silent night Steve's rasping gasps and the wind as it howled and moaned in the darkness, sometimes pulling at the flakes in Steve's hair and sometimes clinging to the gaps in Steve's clothing to stab at his bare skin. He didn't notice it, not entirely, because his body was going numb at the vital points and was sleeping or dead everywhere else.

He didn't expect to see the morning.

"So you didn't come here wishing you were a healthy big boy, not popular or able to beat up the other kids?" Steve lifted his head from where it was falling towards his chest, a jerk towards the demon, completely devoid of snow and the wind Steve noticed. The demon's eyes were still black from edge to edge, still soulless and inhuman and entirely empty of life, but the lips and the brow told Steve that he was confused, baffled by the thoughts of saving another. All Steve could do was smile weakly and offer his only explanation, because he didn't have time to think up a lie or have the idea that the demon would care.

"I'm always sick and getting into fights and I've never had any friends that weren't lonely too," Steve tried to say through chattering teeth, but ended up some garbled language that he wasn't even sure was invented. The demon seemed to understand anyways, and nodded for Steve to continue. "I don't do anything that Mama can't do better without me, and ever since The Car Crash, she's never been the same. She only looks at me like I'm some bird with broken wings, the kind that you find in the park and try and make it fly again by feeding it peanut butter and acorns but the wing's broken still anyways. I don't want to be that bird and I don't want my Mama to have to take care of me because she knows I'm going to die. I've known everyday that yesterday was probably my last day and I'm always wondering why I'm still here. I don't need to be, but Mama needs to be. She's big and grown up and can do things and people listen to her. People need Mama and Mama don't need me."

The silence that followed was nothing short of absolutely deafening, the wind still and gone and the shadows the only things in motion. Steve waited for the demon to speak again, but even the snow would not dare touch him right then and Steve couldn't help but notice that the white icy fluff was going _around_ him, like if it touched him then it died. One lone flake though, one stupid and courageous snow flake dared to defy the order of the others and sailed carelessly into the face of the demon. It landed on his sharp cheekbones, and did the most amazing thing of melting on contact, a single drip down like a river cutting through a canyon of rock and thin trees.

In that half a second from the flake melting to Steve realizing what he thought it looked like, the demon disappeared. Steve blinked again, trying to understand where he went and what he did wrong before a voice interrupted his thoughts directly behind him. "You do know that that's the most idiotic wish in the world, right?"

Steve whipped around, an embarrassing squeak escaping from his mouth as he came face-to-belly with the demon. He took a step back in fright, his foot catching on a slick patch of smooth ice and his body was free falling and oh god he was going to hit his head and die before he could make the deal and then everything would have been for nothing and his Mama would never get better and doctors would never tell her that the tests for that terrible disease were wrong and just, _he couldn't die now!_

Steve squeezed his eyes shut, ready for the final impact when instead he was jerked half-way from the ground and up into something almost uncomfortably warm after being in the arctic air for so long and soft and smelled like a fireplace and an incense shop all at once. But Steve didn't feel the need to choke or hack or sneeze like he usually would and it was just…nice.

Steve resisted the immediate urge to burrow into the odd comfortable embrace of a demon that saved him from dying because he probably needed to make sure that Steve died _after_ signing whatever he needed to sign for his immortal soul, but Steve couldn't find it in himself to care much when he knew he was not long for life anyways. He was going to die, why not have a little bit of comfort before he passed? So without much, or rather anymore thought, Steve brought his arms around and hugged as much of the demon as he could, which wasn't much really what with little arms and all.

In that moment, in that one long moment where Steve just hugged a demon and a demon saved a little boy that was dying from a sudden death, they both came to very large, very important, and very instant realizations:

_Oh. He has a heartbeat._

_He's so _tiny. _He could break if the wind wanted to shove him down._

They didn't part for another minute, both slightly in awe of the other and of the fact that there wasn't a surge of lightning to smite them where they stood. Then, by Steve taking the courage to look up into black eyes that were empty from edge to edge, he asked the demon. "Mister, what's your name? I'm Steve."

The demon felt something break in him a little bit by the statement, something he wasn't sure he had anymore. He said, in as steady a voice as he could, "I'm Buchanan."

Steve smiled, and the demon could feel that mythical and mysterious part that he thought he no longer had squeeze. "Buchanan is a funny name," he said, "but I like it. It's the same name that my grandpa said was his best friend's name."

Buchanan could once again feel the contraction of that heinous human piece of him, but he couldn't bring himself to care at the moment. "Funny. My best friend was named Steve."

The little Steve-that-wasn't-Buchanan's-Steve nodded sagely. "There are a lot of boys named Steve at my school," he said, using all seven years of his life experiences to state that fact, "Well, when I go to school anyways. But they all like to be called Steven, or Spike, or Saurus. I once knew a Steve who only liked to be called Betty, but he was she and I always had to fight for her because she said that girls don't fight, even when they were born boys."

Buchanan could only stare at Steve, before he blurted out, "You fought other boys? You're age?"

"Of course! If I fought younger boys then it wouldn't be fair because they've never been in as many fights as me. The older boys are fair game though, because they should know better than to pick on girls and people who are smaller and weaker than them."

Buchanan didn't stop the chuckle from escaping his throat in time. He held the little boy just a little bit tighter as he spoke quietly under his breath, "You're just a little stick of fire and stupid goodness aren't you?"

Steve grinned, showing off a gap in his front teeth. Recognizing the fond tone as a compliment, he replied with a happy, "Yep!"

Buchanan held Steve in his arms just a little bit longer, before he tore himself away and nearly went right back to holding the little boy when he whimpered from the heat being taken away. Buchanan had to stay strong though like a mountain, tough as a raging blizzard, as soulless as the beast he was, or else this transaction would never be completed.

The demon knelt down in front of the shivering little boy, looked directly into the baby blue of the innocent young, and said, "You're a strong boy, Steve. Stronger than any man or woman I've met before, and a lot of them were willing to give up a lot less for what they wanted. For you, I'll make you a special deal, but you must never say it to anyone else in the entire world. You can never speak about it to another person, you can't try to remove it, and you can't ever reveal to _anything_ that I made you this deal. Okay?"

Steve's nearly invisible blond brows furrowed in either seriousness or the cold, mostly likely a combination of the two. "What is it?"

Buchanan sucked in a deep breath before he spoke. "I will give you what you want; your mother's happiness, health, and energy. But I will also give you ten years with your soul, to do with as you please. But the day that the ten years are up I'm going to come and get you personally, and I'll take your soul with me to Hell. I won't send the harpies or the hell hounds, just me. Will that be alright with you?"

No, it wasn't alright, it couldn't be alright! Steve was just a kid for Satan's sake, his mom should be the one there with a filthy demon not a kid who was still in his innocence and idealism. Buchanan felt like the sack of shit that he was, but it was the best deal he had to offer. Ten years, a personal escort downstairs instead of those mangy maggot infested mutts or those flying birdy bitches, and one extra gift that he wanted to keep as a surprise.

Buchanan could feel _that part_ of him breaking again when little Steve didn't even hesitate in saying, "Okay! But you should probably know that I'm going with you tonight because it's too cold for me to live to tomorrow."

And for Buchanan, that was the straw that broke the demon's back.

Buchanan, gently so gently because he couldn't stand the thought of this little kid breaking before he really had to, brought Steve back to him. He wrapped his whole body around that little tiny boy, protecting him from the wind and the cold and darkness with his own coat, warmth and sinking blackness. Steve, either because he didn't understand or because he understood exactly, nestled into the demon's arms and placed his head onto Buchanan's shoulder. He took one enormous breath, the biggest that his weak lungs could take, and realxed into the smell of a homey fireplace and a soothing magic incense shop.

"Then the deal is struck," Buchanan said in a voice far shakier than he would have liked. He leaned his head back, and when Steve looked up at him, kissed his clammy forehead with a tenderness not befitting a creature of hatred and death. He pulled back from Steve, who only looked sad and resigned.

If demon's could cry, Buchanan was sure he would be balling. Because for a moment, he thought he saw a very old friend in those very young eyes.

"Buchanan," Steve finally spoke up when he felt, Buchanan shaking, his head down and away from Steve with his expression hidden in the dark night and Steve's flashlight just didn't have the power or angle to see anything, "are you alright?"

Buchanan let out a sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh and ended up sounding like a sob instead. "I'm just fine Steve." He took a deep breath and gave a little fake smile to him, his black eyes sucking away any of the humanity that was in it but the kindness was still there. "I'm just fine."

Steve didn't believe him, but then again most adults lied when they were asked that question so it was probably just a thing he would never understand. "Alright. Do you want to go now, or do you need to wait until I die?"

Buchanan froze at the question. He would guess that Steve had absolutely no idea what was going to happen to him when Buchanan had to take him down to Hell. It was the only explanation as to why he wasn't panicking.

"I know I'm probably going to be tortured for the rest of eternity," Steve said, interrupting whatever good thoughts Buchanan might have hoped for, "and I know that I'm probably going to be used as the Devil's whipping boy and a demon's dog toy, but that's okay. Mama's going to be well off without me, so I don't have any regrets. But, if it's alright with you, can I just sit down with you and sleep? I haven't slept in a long time and I'm getting kind of tired and you smell really nice and you're really warm."

Now that was a request that Buchanan could work with. "Okay."

So in the middle of two deserted streets, one intersecting the other, both gravel made and time worn, sat one demon smack dab in the middle with a little boy more bones than human dressed in cared for rags in his lap with the demon's coat open and around him, the demon holding the boy close to his chest to protect him from the enemies Winter and Wind. Steve fell into sleep almost immediately, and it amazed Buchanan to no end that such a small and pure thing made of light and innocence could possibly stand to be in the presence of a twisted and terrible thing as a demon but there he was, burrowing his head under Buchanan's chin and into his neck. He could hear and feel a deep inhale of breath, and then a contented sigh as he felt that tiny being go lax and dreaming only seconds after.

_I can't do it. Not yet. In another ten years, when he's sinned and is a cruel human being. That's when he'll be ready to take. Not like this, where the happiest he can think of being is dead. He wouldn't even be worth it now, not even a decade's worth of entertainment for Alistair. No, I'll wait. And then I'll lead him down._

_**Winter, 1997, the next morning**_

Steve woke up, more well rested and energetic than he could ever remember being. Outside the wind was thrashing against the windows to get in, bombarding the glass with small hail pellets that bounced off with the sounds of _tings_! and _pings_! A large icicle was hanging in front of his window when he rolled over to look, and in it was the most remarkable thing.

_You have ten years,_ it said in a straight and basic script in the ice, _don't waste them._

Steve could only grin, and his face hurt with the force of it but it didn't matter one bit. He could hear a sweet humming in the kitchen and he could smell the beginnings of bacon and eggs, that rare treat that came with special occasions.

Steve hopped out of his lumpy bed and nearly tripped over his old boots lying beside the bed but righted himself in time to prevent that.

Steve halted his progress to the door, stunned. He _always_ fell on his face when he tripped, it was nearly a law of the universe that he do so!

_But it didn't happen!_

Steve looked back to the icicle that hung in his window, then towards the direction of the humming and cooking. Steve might have been seven years old, but he wasn't stupid. The easy breathing, the energy, the happy mother and the fact that he had all ten fingers and toes still? There was only one explanation.

Steve grinned and spoke to the icicle, not knowing if the demon was listening or not and most definitely unconcerned if he looked a little unhinged with talking to a piece of frozen water. "Thank you, Buchanan!"

"Steve, who are you talking to?" Angela Rogers peaked her head in to her son's room, her body still recovering from illness but her eyes and skin bright with energy and life. "You're not talking to Mr. Bottlebee through the walls again are you? I told you that you can talk to him to the face like a normal – oof!" Steve ran to his mother and wrapped every part of him around her slender middle, not willing to let go for even a second. Angela just stared at her son in bewilderment, but for only a moment. After, she gently wrapped her arms around her boy, tight enough to know that she knew exactly how he felt. A miraculous thing like being able to get out of bed after being bed ridden for a week was wonderful, and the fact that her young son understood that was even more so.

Then, a small detail was introduced to her. Angela sniffed her son, who curiously looked up at her when she sniffed him again. "Steve, why so you smell like a fireplace and an incense shop?"

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_**Comments? Opinions? Random remarks? Pterodactyl noises? I'll take what I can get.**_


	2. Chapter 2:Far Too Busy For Your Nonsense

_**A/N:**_ Hiya, Buttons here! I should probably make this clear for those people who were confused the last time: Nothing untoward happens while Steve is a minor. This will be finished. Sorry about the typos, I actually beta it myself and sometimes I miss things.

To _Caitlynn Sidhe_, I apologize for the accidental romance that I tried really hard not to display until Steve is an adult, so rest assured that nothing happens before Steve is legal. Also, I do think that the level of trust, friendship, comfort, and affection between the two do have a very good and solid base for a healthy relationship, so I also apologize if that was stepping on any feet. On the flip side, could you or anyone tell me which characters in the Marvelvers are not straight? I know about Deadpool but that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge.

To _Qoheleth_, I would love to! Send me links and I'll sign up for it!

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't gain. Simply to entertain.

_**Chapter 2: Far Too Busy for Your Nonsense**_

_**Winter, 2007**_

That was another day that Steve would always remember perfectly. It was Christmas Break and his Mom was away to visit her new boyfriend's family and Steve had told her that he wanted to stay behind ("He has way too many baby cousins," he had said, a completely honest truth that he used to lie with, "I think I'd be more comfortable just spending the holiday with Sam's family.") Steve was in his last year of high school with a good prospect of going to a prestigious art academy on full scholarship. Puberty had hit him like a boulder and he shot up to an easy six and a half feet tall. He'd finally found a medication that eased the minor asthma (although it certainly wasn't minor when he was young) enough for him to play sports, which led him to become the best quarterback his school had ever seen. Steve got asked out by both girls and boys all the time, and he even went out with a few of them.

In short, Steve's life was looking awesome that winter of 2007. And to the unknown human, Steve would probably become President if he wasn't careful. To those in the know (which was all of 2 thinking creatures) however, they weren't expecting much past a little bit of struggling and maybe a few bitten curse words. What Steve was expecting, on a completely different appendage (possibly the foot), was that he would probably never be reborn into life and for as long as his immortal soul lasted he would suffer and be the play thing of demons and monsters that his poor human mind could never even being to conjure up on its own.

That still didn't scare him as much as wondering if demons ate human food or not and if it was proper etiquette for sold souls to feed their demon buyers with food or their own fingers or some other such thing. Because at that very moment Steve was torn between making pastrami, salami, ham or turkey sandwiches with a bit of vegetarian thrown in for good measure. He was going to hell with a very nice demon as he recalled, and he would be damned (not like he already wasn't but it was the principle of the matter) if he allowed such a fine deal to be unthanked when he had the chance. In the end, Steve just ended up making a little bit of everything and tossed in some homemade cookies that he whipped up that morning. Bottles of lemonade, cocoa powder and water, check. Good food, check. Thick blanket to handle the ground with, check. Heavy duty camp-lamps, check. Some firewood with a little bit of starter fuel, check. S'more equipment, "Check, check, and double check!" Stuffed all into a sizable backpack and a heavy duffel bag, Steve was ready.

Steve grinned a little stupidly to himself, "Alright then, all prepared! Picnics with demons who're about to take you to Hell are totally normal, nothing to be worried about!" Chipper as he tried to be, even Steve couldn't help those twisty knots in his stomach. As he was about to leave that same apartment he'd lived in since he could remember, he took one last good look around. Not much had changed over the last decade, the couches a little more worn and holey in some places, that one thin book that was just the right size for the coffee table to even itself on that Steve had never bothered to read, the small fold up table next to a window with lacy curtains that his mother had sewn and the kitchen, where Steve had burned himself so badly he scarred when he was twelve, as spotless as ever. Small TV that was only used to watch the news and Jeopardy when both Steve and his mom were home, floor to ceiling bookshelf stacked with books like _Harry Potter_ and _The Art of War_ and the _Bible_ and more sketchbooks than Steve or his mother knew what to do with. Then the pictures; God there were so many. There were pictures from before The Car Crash, where the whole family was there and Steve was still able to sit on a person's lap without crushing them and his mom still smiled all the way up to her eyes. Then there were the pictures afterwards (a two year gap from the time more pictures were taken) and Steve and his mom were together alone in the pictures, sometimes with friends and sometimes with their chosen family of which most lived in the same building as them. Steve and his mom's life, a fast forward of images.

"I'm never going to see this place again."

The words hit Steve like a freight train, hadn't meant to say them aloud but it made it so much worse that he heard them in his own voice. It was the like he had been in a terribly comfortable bed of safety and naivete before being dumped into the Arctic Ocean. Steve could even feel the salty ocean inside of him, crawling up and out of his eyes, making the whole room swim with him.

And Steve panicked. He thought about running away, or making a break for the hoodoo man who still lived in E3 and asking for help, of calling his mom and asking if she still loved him even if he didn't own his soul anymore. It didn't matter anymore did it, not that a demon was nice to him, not that he was healthy when he was seventeen, not that Buchanan –

_Oh. That's right. Buchanan is going to get in trouble if I don't show up, won't he._ An angry demon would probably take away Steve's health, his mother's health, all that time it took for them to be happy again. Steve couldn't even bear the thought of going back to before he made the deal, of when a good night was when the both of them had heating and something to eat at the same time and when his mother walked the nights she was able to get up to pay for those things. Of worrying whether he or she would make it through the night. Of wondering whether one of his mom's crazy customers would find them and make them bleed and bruise and so much worse. That praying under moth eaten covers would just be a challenge for whoever was listening. It was Hell. That was Hell. Anything Satan thought he could dish out clearly wasn't going to make Steven G. Rogers bend and break.

And Steve shut and locked the door with a finality that he believed was befitting his decision. He marched down the halls that he grew up in, past that one scratch on the corner that Steve made accidentally when he fell carrying up a chair for the new folks that were moving in down the hall. On the way he passed elderly Mr. Bottlebee sleeping in his favorite arm chair in the hallway (Steve remembered moving that too when he was fifteen and Mr. Bottlebee's dementia had hit full force so that he would only be happy when he had someone to talk too. The easiest solution was to move his armchair out into the hallway and nobody had said a word since). Steve fixed the blanket that was covering Mr. Bottlebee with a fond exasperated smile and continued on his way.

On the way to the meeting place, Steve didn't meet anyone else that he knew. The route was still the same that he remembered, two bus changes and some walking, but the way it felt changed. There wasn't anymore of the terrible hope, of the surety that things were only going to be false and everyone Steve had ever cared about was going to die, that only the kindness of strangers was going to let him get through to the next morning. Now, he knew things were going to be fine and Steve could take care of himself using the money that he had earned at his part-time job (all saved up and in a back account for his mom if she ever needed it). The only thing that Steve could say for certain had never changed was the surety that he would never see the dawn of the next morning and that he had left his mom with all that he could give her. She would never need to worry about him again, because Steve had prepared for that, and sure she would be sad that he wasn't with her anymore but now she had even more people she could rely on to get her through it.

Everyone was going to be fine. Even Steve.

The bus system was still awful, but at least the smelly people didn't try for a conversation and the drunk lady was only handsy for his chest. And no physically debilitating symptoms, also a plus! _See_, Steve thought as he pushed the hands on the woman off his pecs again, _going to see a perfectly polite demon isn't so bad_.

When Steve finally made it to the dirt road behind the bus drop off he sighed in relief, shaking his whole body to try and dislodge the feeling of unwanted hands all over him. But when his shivering actually spurred on cold trembles, Steve could only roll his eyes at the unfairness of the weather. It had been one of the biggest blizzards of the decade only a week ago and the snow was refusing to melt during the warmer days. Granted it was December, but that didn't mean that walking in a foot and a half of snow was by any means pleasant.

Trudging his way through the snow made Steve remember that night, precisely ten years ago, that everything had gotten better. His feet had crunched against the hard ground and made a sound every time he moved. Now, in the deep parts of the road, Steve's heavy body only crunched when he packed the ice beneath his feet with only a ghostly shifting when he moved it with the ruts he created walking.

_Shh crunch. Shh crunch. Shh crunch._ So much noisier and yet so much more silent than when he was a child. Steve marveled at the differences as he walked and he walked and he walked, until he was finally walking uphill. There, at the very end of his literal uphill fight against the elements was the crossroads, smoothed over and flattened until only the smooth gravel and the frozen dirt were left.

Nothing was different, not really. There were power lines erected beside the road that weren't there ten years ago and for some reason there was now a random large rock off to the side near the western corner of the crossroad square, roughly cut and painted a faded out blue. Knowing that he probably wasn't going to get run over (cars running in that snow was going to be next to impossible and only the most stalwart of truck drivers were going to even attempt the trek) Steve found the flattest patch of earth he could and started setting up.

When Buchanan arrived on Earth for what he entitled in his head The Steve Day, what he was expecting was an apartment somewhere in a heavy city area or the backwoods of an out of the way place. What he wasn't expecting was the exact spot he had made the deal ten years ago. For that matter, he certainly wasn't expecting a campfire with a _picnic_ in the dead of _winter_, but for some reason that defied all logic there was one. And by a very good looking young man at that who was roasting a marshmallow on a stick, graham crackers and pieces of Hershey chocolate stacked neatly beside him.

Buchanan took a moment to just stare at the absurdity of it, unable to move in slight awe of the balls that the young human had to have just to do it. It couldn't have been Steve, nope, had to be some punk that lost a bet or was doing a dare or some other foolish thing. Buchanan remembered doing stupid stuff like that when he was human to impress people, and so Buchanan chose to keep to his southern corner to observe the human. In the back of his mind he let his demon mind keep telling him that the human was Steve while his human mind was laughing at the demon part for ever even considering that the tiny, sickly, clearly a resident of Death's doorstep child was now the strapping, good looking, very healthy young man making –

"S'mores?" Buchanan was jerked from his contemplations by a kind voice. His eyes zeroed in on the hand held out to him with a s'more dripping gooey marshmallow out the sides and chocolate melting steadily over the roasted sugar. His eyes traveled up the toned arm to the face of the human. His hair was cut differently and he had a few acne spots near his hair line and speckled on his fine cheekbones but the eyes were the same. The same blue, the same roundness, the same heavy history with the light of a thousand suns. There was a different sort of hope this time, not of pleading but of kindness. Lips were curved into an unsteady smile that was dropping at the same rate as the marshmallow until it was an awkward grimace. "So, that's a no then? Sorry, I didn't know if demons ate food or not and I didn't want to be impolite. I brought water, lemonade and hot cocoa if you'd rather prefer that – "

"_Steve?_" Buchanan's mind was sent into a tumble. Of course he expected Steve to have grown up a bit, but into someone short and scrawny not a football player in the making, "_Little Steve_?"

Steve gave a small embarrassed wave with the hand that wasn't holding his sugary creation, "That's me!"

"Holy shit. You really grew up, didn't you?" Buchanan couldn't help the grin that made its way onto his face, disbelieving and still a little shell shocked. "I didn't expect to see you for a little while yet. You do realize that it's still another half an hour until I'm to pick you up, right?" _Oh hell, don't tell me he grew into someone stupid._

"I know," Steve said after taking a bite of s'more, "but I figured you wouldn't have a lot of time to do things like eating or enjoying things like s'mores so I came early. My mom won't ever use these things anyways so she won't miss them. By the way, what kind of meat do you like on your sandwich? I made a little bit of everything and I even I can't eat all of it."

Buchanan took a second to blink before answering, "You, who sold your soul when you were seven years old, who hasn't led your whole life yet, who can't even vote yet or have a drink at the bar _or even buy a packet of cigarettes_, is offering dinner to the demon about to take his soul to hell." His black eyes, still the same empty abyss that spanned edge to edge, narrowed, "What did you put in it?"

Steve didn't look particularly bothered by the question, "The sandwiches are pretty much just tomato, mayo, lettuce and cheese with whatever meat I tossed on it. The s'mores are your basic marshmallow and –"

"Don't play cute," Buchanan growled, squaring his shoulders and using the shadows cast by a crescent moon swarmed by clouds to make himself seem even bigger, more intimidating, like he could snap Steve in half if he made the wrong move. "I know that you put a demon trap under that blanket, holy water in those drinks, salt in that food!"

"You can't have salt?" Steve looked honestly distressed by that more than anything else, like he just accidentally stepped on a cripple's foot while walking down a hall, "Sorry, I didn't know that! The salami and pastrami has extra salt and so does the pork and roast beef, so I guess all I can give you is the vegetarian and turkey. Sorry about that. On the bright side, I know for a fact that the s'mores, lemonade and hot cocoa all are pretty much salt free so that's good. Unless you're allergic to any of that…?"

"No. No I'm not allergic to anything like that." Buchanan was in a slight daze now, unable to really believe what in all of Heaven, Hell and Earth he was seeing. A _boy_ was trying to be kind to him. A _human_ was trying to feed him. His _charge_ was trying to, to, to… "What the hell are you trying to do?"

The statement came out less like a demand and more like a curious inquiry, which is decidedly _not_ what it was but Steve seemed not to have noticed. "Well, I figured I'd spare you the trouble of finding me and that since this is my last meal that I might as well have the most interesting company I can. Is that alright with you? I don't mean to presume, but I figured we could at least eat before we go..."

Buchanan did not like this kid's hopeful blue eyes, or the way he seemed to grow shyer the more he spoke about what he wanted or how refreshingly honest he was. He did not like how Buchanan felt like reminiscing about the past when he looked at him or how he was so strikingly similar to an old friend that he used to have. In short, Buchanan would try everything to make sure that this guy was as uncomfortable as possible and would be able to feel the hate that Buchanan felt towards him.

"That's fine. I don't get to eat much anyway." _WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING YOU STUPID IDIOTIC DEMON SCUM?! _Buchanan made his way towards the heavily padded blanket with steady and silent footsteps. _BODY STOP FUCKING MOVING AND JUST TAKE THE DAMN KID'S SOUL ALREADY! HE IS LITERALLY WAITING FOR YOU TO TAKE HIS ASS TO HELL! _

Buchanan sat down and made himself comfortable on the blanket across from Steve, one knee up for him to lean on and the other tucked into him for comfort. His demon half of the brain was cussing out a storm, telling him to just take the chance and get it all over with while his human half was just pissing itself to have the chance to talk to someone not completely tainted by sin and the shit of Hell. In retrospect, Buchanan was probably going to kick himself later for hanging around the meat suits so much.

Steve offered another s'more, freshly made, and Buchanan took it, marveling at the way that the kid didn't shy away from his hand like a scared little rabbit. Some of his other (as he his boss liked to call them) clients, tried their damnedest to get away and not be found. A couple of them had even succeeded in putting him off for a few years. But Buchanan was nothing if not good at his job and he had yet to ever fail at retrieving a soul, nor would he ever so long as he was a demon.

Buchanan took one bite of the s'more and nearly had a heart attack (if he could he was sure he would've) at the amount of sweet flavor that assaulted his mouth all at once. He might have come off a little bit more eager than he would've liked with the next bite which was clearly better than the last, and the next even more so, until finally he was finished with the most wonderful thing he could remember having in, quite literally, decades. He was wondering if he should ask for another before Steve was holding his hand out again, this time with two s'mores and a little smile. Buchanan didn't much care about pride as he picked up both s'mores from Steve but he made himself at least half way civil in slowly eating and savoring each bite as he did so.

"Do you want a stick?" Bucky was caught off guard by the piece of wood suddenly in his face, blunt end towards him but another honest smile as sharp as ever as it cut deeper into him than he expected. Bucky took it, and Steve scooted over until they were only a couple of feet from each other on the blanket, staring into the fire a little ways from them in, bless Buchanan if he was wrong, companionable silence. The s'more equipment was between them, acting as a barrier for Buchanan's uneasy sense of comfort (which was one of the oddest feelings one could have, and Buchanan had had feelings once upon a time ago).

If Steve was feeling any of the awkwardness he was hiding it well. That only made Buchanan want to talk more, but he refused to be the one to crack, the one to show weakness first.

"Why did you really do this?" _Damn it!_ "Normal, sane people run away from their executioner, not towards them."

Steve just shrugged, pouring a bit of cocoa into a thermos, "I figured you were going to find me and if you didn't then things could go wrong. It's not that I want to go to Hell; it's that I'm repaying a debt for a deal I made fair and square." Steve offered the hot cocoa to Buchanan, who shook his head (he wasn't that trusting of the human) to which Steve just took a sip instead before continuing, "If you had taken away the time I'd spent and sent me back to before I made the deal with you, I don't think I'd mind going to Hell anyways. There are worse things than pain inflicted upon you."

Buchanan watched his charge's eyes darken for a few seconds, going to places Buchanan wasn't sure that the kid had seen yet until then. "And you would know all about that wouldn't you?"

"I'm sure that there are far worse things than what I've imagined," Steve was pulling his knees up to his chest and hugged them with one arm while the other was fiddling with the capped hot cocoa. "Just the same as I'm sure that Hell for me would have been my mother, sick and friendless with another man that only wanted her company for a little while. She's doing fine by the way, got a nice job as a secretary for the landlord where we live and we get fifty bucks knocked off the rent every month." Steve was grinning now, using his while teeth with the snaggle tooth just to the right that Buchanan thought was typical of the human species. Imperfection just made the perfection all the more visible, and it pained him to think that he used to believe that being perfect was the greatest thing man could achieve.

"That's nice," Buchanan took a bite out of a newly made and slightly singed s'more, "I was figuring that you would've moved on to doing things like rebelling by now. Most kids your age try it out before they either realize it's stupid or that being a little walking shit is more liberating than they know what to do with."

Steve didn't even flinch at the cursing, but to Buchanan's astonishment his heat flushed cheeks engulfed his entire face until the demon was sure that his ears would become permanently red. Fascinated at the sudden change, Buchanan regarded Steve as he scratched behind his ear self consciously before saying, "Well…that part of puberty didn't skip over me either. Just because I sold my soul doesn't mean that I was an exception to the rule, unfortunately."

Buchanan's eyes widened at the admission and didn't bother to keep his mischievous grin in check. "Sweet and perfect little Steve actually got the balls to rebel against sweet Mama? Now this I got to hear about."

Steve gave the demon a wry look before taking a sip of his cocoa petulantly like the teenager he was. "I…might have gotten a tattoo."

Buchanan gave a sarcastic gasp, placing a dramatic hand on his chest, "Steve got a tattoo on his holy temple prized to him from the big man upstairs? Why, I'm shocked! Hell surely won't be able to handle the monster that is a rebellious teenage Steve, will it?"

"It wasn't that bad! Just, a little quote is all."

"Oh? What did you get? The lyrics to "Highway to Hell" on your ass?"

"No! Hold on a second, I'll show you," once again Buchanan observed, intrigued and no small amount of stupefied as the boy pulled off his left boot, up his pant leg and down his sock to reveal in slanted writing a spiraling anklet sentence. "It says 'Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.'"

Buchanan could feel his body freeze at the words. "Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr."

Steve looked startled as he was hastily pulling his boot back on. "You know about Oliver Wendell Holmes?"

Buchanan leaned back nonchalantly, "Yeah, I used to read a lot of him when I was younger. My friend – he found that same quote and fell in love with it. It was what he always used to say when he was signing his letters to go back home to his family."

Steve gave him a long look, obviously contemplating something. "I remember someone a long time ago saying something about how it wasn't uncommon for soldiers to write their favorite motto in their letters back home during World War Two. Do you – were you a soldier, back in World War Two?"

The demon didn't say anything for a long time. Then, as Steve was finishing off the last of his cooling cocoa, he spoke. "I used to be human too, you know. All demons were. We are corrupted souls that finally – we couldn't hack it. We broke. If I was a soldier once, I'm not one anymore."

Steve looked like he wanted to ask more, but Buchanan cut off any line of questioning by not looking at him and by making a s'more of pure determination (and wasn't that something Buchanan thought he would ever do). In the end, Steve didn't say anything about Buchanan's confession and finished off his cocoa in silence.

"Why do you look different?" Buchanan was in mid-chew when Steve finally blurted out his question, looking the demon straight in the eye and only mildly embarrassed that he asked. "If it's something embarrassing, sorry, never mind, but if it's something that you're comfortable with I'd really like to know. It's been bugging me the whole time."

"Do you mean how I am now a woman?" Buchanan smirked and smoothed down his (and yes, despite the meat suit Buchanan was still very much male) black pantsuit of invisible creases. "No reason really. She was the closest human available to me and so I'm using her body for the convenience. Male bodies are just as good, but female bodies usually don't put up as much of a fight."

Steve looked at the woman's tight bun of dark hair, her impeccable taste in classy suits and her clearly fit physique before saying, "She doesn't look like the type of lady to just let a demon take over without throwing a few punches at you for good measure."

Bucky let out an unladylike snort and nodded, absently rubbing his (the woman's) cheek. "No kidding. She managed to get in one or two kicks with her soul before I made her sink far enough into her subconsciousness that she isn't struggling anymore."

"Does it hurt?" Buchanan looked over and saw that the kid looked genuinely concerned.

"Me? Nah, I'm good. Any human is going to have a tough time taking me down, doesn't matter if she knows jujitsu or not. Oh, for her? No. She's just sleeping at the back of my mind. It's like I'm shoving her entire personality over so that she has no choice but to sleep to conserve her soul. If she wants to watch then she _can_, but most humans choose to fall into the blackness when I take over."

"What's her name?"

Buchanan frowned at the question, but searched the woman's memories anyways for the information. "Maria Hill. Ugh, just had to pick someone named after a saint, didn't I? Those are always the tricky ones to keep a reign on."

"Will that happen to me? When I go down to Hell?"

Buchanan was silent for a moment, and Steve wondered if he had some how asked a question that the demon had taken a vow secrecy for or something of that nature. "Maybe. But you're body is a little young to be really useful. Probably would be too unstable for long term usage, other than to get to the younger crowd."

Steve nodded. He understood that some kids just changed one day from good to terrible, and he'd always been able to see the emptiness and the abyss in their eyes, same as the ones that Buchanan had, the orbs that devoured the light instead of housing it. He'd never bothered to confront them, simply because he knew that those kids were already dead. They always led others to more trouble than they could handle, and Steve was sure to keep his distance whenever possible.

"You don't seem too shocked by it."

"I'm not. People will always have a darkness in them that demons can use, right?"

Buchanan's eyebrows disappeared into his current hairline, "Figured that out did'ja?"

Steve simply gave a one shouldered shrug, keeping his eyes to the fire as he continued to speak, "I guess I've always sort of known. Even before I made the deal, I always knew that some people just weren't…people? I don't know how to explain it all the way, but it's always seemed to me that not everyone was right in their soul. If that makes any sense."

Buchanan continued to watch the stillness of the kid, the flames from their campfire casting flickering shadows over his cheeks, into his hair, reflected over blue eyes that pained Buchanan to watch for longer than a few seconds at a time.

"You're an observant kid aren't you?"

Steve grinned sheepishly now, like he had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Yeah," and he did that same self conscious little scratch behind his ear as he spoke, "it's not something I'm particularly good at keeping to myself if you know what I mean."

Buchanan used far too many teeth to smile. "You blackmail people into doing what you want?"

"No!" Steve was positively scandalized and Buchanan let his full body laugh escape without a hint of regret. "Never! It's just, sometimes I see things that other people would rather others didn't know about and I keep forgetting that not everyone sees the same things as me. It's caused a lot of fights I'm sorry to say. Jeez Buchanan, you make it sound like I'm the next Godfather or something."

Whatever the demon was going to say next was lost to the unknown because it seemed the winter had finally killed him right down to his torn up soiled soul. After a few frozen moments of silence Steve looked over, seeing that his companion had stilled so much that perhaps Steve _had_ killed him with s'mores.

"Hey, Buchanan? Are you alright?" Steve reached over the barrier of sweets and only managed to touch the demon's shoulder for half a second before the other lurched away from his touch like it stung him. "Sorry!"

"I don't have time for this." Without warning Buchanan stood up, and Steve thought that for a second he swayed but it must have been a trick of the crescent moonlight. Buchanan hurled his s'more stick into the fire, forcing Steve to cover his eyes with his forearm to keep the resulting sparks away from them. Steve whipped his head to where Buchanan was stomping off in perfect black heels to the southern corner, for the first time making noise. The crunching iced gravel created foot-sized craters with every step and for the first time since Steve was a child he was genuinely afraid of the demon.

"What's wrong? Buchanan – "

"I spent too much time talking to you." Buchanan didn't even spare the time to look behind him as he approached his southern corner, the air colder and sharper than ever without his demon heat to shove aside any winter not warmed by the fire. "We've missed our chance to bring you to Hell tonight. I'll come get you myself whenever it's convenient for me, when you're alone and scared, vulnerable and terrified. So look over your shoulder everyday until then kid, because I will come for you and it will be your last day on Earth."

"Wait, what's going – "

"I have other appointments besides you, kid. Don't think that you're the center of the universe." Before Steve could get another word out, Buchanan disappeared into the air. Steve didn't even blink – he was just gone.

The teen sat there for a few minutes, a little bit stunned, a little bit curious, and not a bit worried. He had time. Not much more time if he guessed, just more. More to spend those holidays with friends and family, more to live a little bit longer. Steve didn't know what he did to deserve such a gift, but he wasn't going to waste it. In five minutes he had all his things packed up, the fire out and covered and the blanket keeping that same incense and fireplace smell that Steve had almost forgotten about was folded away into the duffel bag.

Steve didn't know how he was going to get back home, but if he had to run and hitchhike the whole way then that would only be a small price to pay for the extra freedom he had left. He felt that there were some people who he still needed to see.

His Mama always did like surprise presents.

On the beaches of Normandy, France, one crossroads demon stood upon the shore with icy water lapping at his borrowed feet. The waves sang their mournful lullaby while the sun was heading up the horizon and the sea gulls were squawking angrily at each other.

There Buchanan replayed a portion of his life that he thought he had forgotten: a rain of burning metal shells, a spray of warm blood that collided with the upturned ocean and the thunderous pounding of the canons through flesh to the red stained sand. He thought things were going to be fine when he had his best friend with him, his Steve. His Steve was full of fire and fight, had to be because growing up poor in Brooklyn was hard and when you were skinny and righteous even more so. He fought tooth and nail to get fit enough to join Buchanan when they were shipped off to war, and their first battle, their first real taste of war, that was where it ended.

And there he was, now a demon with no best friend to speak of, reminiscing about the days when he was human and what he thought was Hell incarnate was only a sliver of what the real thing was like. Buchanan used to be called something else back then, had a name only his Steve called him by and that was enough.

But the new Steve, the Soul Sold Steve, he was growing into a man. Not quite there yet, not worth the trouble of getting him to Hell only to break in a few decades. No, he still wasn't ready quite yet. Another year. The kid would get another year to sin and, when he finally was an adult, sin as much as any other kid his age was want to do. It was clearly the only logical thing left to do, to let the Kid Steve be and wait.

It had nothing to do with the fact that a stupid human kid had remembered his name. It had nothing to do with the way he looked when he said it, with the strange familiarity of years of knowing one another that wasn't truly right. It certainly wasn't because his eyes were so old in that young face while they still had the light of the youthful. Absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, not because Soul Sold Steve had looked like Buchanan's Steve for half a second. Besides, he hadn't said what his name had been, not really, not the one that His Steve had called him.

A demon was a demon. A crossroads demon was Crowley's bitch, and everyone knew it. Everyone knew that Crowley had just sneered away at the name Buchanan had given back then, knew about the way the King of the Crossroads had slapped on a different title as soon as he was one of them.

"_Buchanan_."

*** _**Okie doke, comments? Thoughts? Screams of**__**rage? I'm up for it!**_


	3. Chapter 3: Inconveniently Convenient

_**A/N:**_ You know, this whole thing was supposed to be a 5,000 word one-shot. I don't think that thought is valid anymore.

_**Disclaimer:**_ Don't own, don't gain. Simply to entertain.

_**Chapter 3: Inconveniently Convenient**_

_**Winter, 2008**_

One year precisely was the third time that Steve talked with the crossroads demon. That was also the day that Steve could fondly remember as the night that he introduced his best friend to his own personal demon, even if it once again didn't end the way he'd planned it to.

There really wasn't anything remarkable about that date, not in the weather or the events of that day that led up to the time, not even in the way that animals reacted (Steve had done lots of reading on demons since his narrow escape last year and had even picked up a few more tid bits from the hoodoo man in E3). Thus, the only thing that could contribute to the fact that Steve was already prepared for the demon's arrival was that he just_ knew._

It was closing towards midnight that December Sunday, snow was draped across the window sills in blankets while the frost gripped the panes like a worried lover, fighting against the heat of the apartment. Angela Rogers was away to visit her parent's grave up North and wasn't expected to be back until the following day, leaving Steve alone and slightly giddy at the prospect of being by himself in his home for an entire night like most teenagers. He had gotten the day off from work and had spent it with Sam jogging around the areas that weren't too icy and throwing bits of frozen mess at each other the rest of the time. Steve gave him his scarf because Sam hadn't had the sense to bring one himself, claiming he was manly enough to deal with the cold.

A whole day being children when you were adults was a tiring business, and they had stopped off at a convenience store before heading to their respective homes. Steve was already in the kitchen by the time he heard the voice behind him, smooth and completely different but still the exact same mixture of cocky and suppressed darkness.

"Hi there, Steve."

Steve didn't even turn around, didn't even seem surprised, as a switched on the stove and removed various things from his cupboards and his refrigerator, "Hey there, Buchanan! Long time no see. How've you been?"

There was a contemplative pause. "How the hell did you not just flip the table in panic?" For a second there Buchanan was harboring the worry that Steve had told someone about the deal, meaning that Buchanan would have to deal with some very unfortunate consequences that he wasn't sure he was ready to deal with.

"I could smell you," Steve said instead, quite simply like one would discuss their favorite color or their best time for a stroll in the best type of weather. "You always smell like a fireplace and incense, like the psychic woman's shop a few blocks over. It's what she calls sage, cedar wood and lavender, right? An interesting combination for a demonic spirit, but I get the feeling you like the irony."

When Steve finally turned to look at Buchanan after a stifling silence it was, to his shock and discomfort, a look that was ready made to flay the skin off enemies and then pin it to the rug for him to clean his boots of muck and filth. "So you did break the deal, you filthy rat."

"I'm sorry?"

"You heard me," Buchanan's eyes, the same empty blackness that stretched across the entire orb gave away no emotions but the brow around it was plenty angry, disgusted, and if Steve was right, hurt and betrayed. "You told someone about the deal, didn't you?!"

Steve held up his hands in a placating manner, "Now hold on there –"

"_I told you never to say anything, you disgusting son of a whore!"_ Buchanan's new body, a plain faced man with no really distinguishing feature, seemed to grow larger and more menacing with every second, the lights in the apartment flickering into dimness and casting the home into heavy shadows that swirled and collected behind Buchanan like a monstrous army. The very air itself was thick and nearly choking with the smells of incense ashes and hellfire. Buchanan's voice descended into the deepest pits of Hell, carrying fear and the promise of pain. "_You're going to pay for – _ACK!"

However, despite how menacing an angry demon can be it cannot quite compare to the wrath of a Steven G. Rogers when blamed for something he did not do. In his retaliation, Steve had thrown an unopened bag of marshmallows at his crossroads dealer so fast and hard it had actually knocked the light back into the appliances and the air back into its slightly too cool to be comfortable winter setting. Buchanan landed on his backside, shocked and thrown for a loop by Steve's own kindly face contorted into a visage of disappointment and righteous anger.

Hands on hips in a most eerily familiar fashion to his mother, Steve was leaning forward as he barked, "I was trying to figure out what I could do for you without making an embarrassing mistake like I did with the sandwiches last year, _you DUMMY!"_

Buchanan stared. There really no other way to say it, except that he stared, and stared, and finally when it began to grate on Steve's nerves (he could feel an eyebrow twitching which was never a good sign) the demon finally managed to tumble out, "So you didn't use this entire year to protect yourself from my demonic advances. You did it so you could…"

"Feed you properly," Steve gave him as exasperated look and walked over to the living room where he bent down to offer Buchanan a hand, "Yes. I figured that you wouldn't want to wait much longer and that we're going soon, but I also think that we can squeeze in a bit of time for hot cocoa and s'mores, huh?"

Buchanan gazed up at Steve with something akin to awe and disbelief, noting the small differences in Sold Soul Steve as he did so; a more defined jaw, hair a tad bit longer like it needed to be cut soon, a bit of stubble drifting across his jaw glinting in the light, and it appeared that his acne spots had cleared up. This Steve, only a year later, was no longer a kid, a full grown up version of the little boy he had made a deal with eleven years ago.

"You've become quite the thoughtful man, haven't you, Steve," Buchanan stated, taking Steve's hand and almost lost his balance when Steve's strength caught him off guard. Catching himself a split second from toppling into the fit chest of his charge, Buchanan took the initiative and stepped away from their four inches of separate space to a middle ground of eighteen.

Steve merely gave a depreciating shrug and went back to the kitchen, "I just try to do the best I can with the time I have left. What's the use of making a deal with the devil if I can't make sure that everyone I leave behind is taken care of too?"

Buchanan rolled his eyes without any of the annoyance that he wanted to imbue in it (he didn't understand why it wasn't coming this time, like it had with others) and leaned on the bar that separated the living room and the kitchen. "Okay, 1) I am a demon, not the Devil. And 2) So you keep telling me. But this makes me wonder what you do that only satisfies you?"

Steve looked genuinely confused when he looked up from two cups of warm milk he was stirring cocoa powder into, "What?"

"You know, the things that people do that satisfy themselves and it doesn't matter if it satisfies anyone else." Buchanan watched the confusion grow on Steve's face and the demon couldn't stop the gaping and the disconcerting feeling that Steve might have been damaged when he made the deal as a child. "You _don't_ know, do you?"

"Don't know what?"

Buchanan didn't have chance to say anything because right then a blur of movement burst through the door wielding a frying pan and an attempt at a menacing snarl that actually was closer to a cross between a sneeze and a frightened puppy. "Steve!" The man waving the frying pan was not much older than Steve if Buchanan had to guess, but far more ready to do battle with Buchanan if the way he was angling himself in front of a bewildered Steve was any sign. "I heard shouting when I got out of the shower! You okay? Who's this guy? He hurting you, buddy?"

"No, it's okay, Sam!" Steve grabbed the skillet (oh wow, cast iron, that had to be heavy but Steve was just holding it like it was made of plastic), "This is my friend, Buchanan. He was just visiting me is all and we got into a little bit of an argument. Nothing to worry about."

Steve's voice was soothing like he was talking down a cat up in a tree, but it didn't seem to have any affect on Sam who was still tense and watching Buchanan like a bird of prey. Then, like someone had flicked a switch, Sam's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. "That's Buchanan? _The_ Buchanan?"

The demon in question narrowed his eyes suspiciously, not quite over his mistaken breach in trust. Steve just looked slightly abashed and refused to look at Buchanan as he said, "Yes Sam, that's my _friend_, Buchanan. He dropped by for a visit and a s'more. Oh, do you want some too?"

Sam looked more relaxed now that he thought Steve was okay (and wasn't that just a kick in the balls for Buchanan), and made his way into the living room like he had been there hundreds of times before, flopping down onto the couch with a familiarity that Buchanan could easily say he was jealous of. Steve just rolled his eyes with a put upon sigh that wasn't nearly as effective as a tool in guilt when he was smiling. He set back into the kitchen, muttering something about how his friends were strange and that he needed to reheat chocolate and what not.

Buchanan was only half paying attention to Steve, because one look from Sam at the couch had him walking over and sitting down at the opposite end, none of the friendly surprise or open expressions from before. This Sam was serious, was cautious and seemed to want to have a serious talk with the demon.

It took only a few moments of Buchanan on the couch before the man finally spoke up. "So you're Buchanan," Sam looked the crossroad demon's current form up and down with an unimpressed look, and it gave Buchanan the oddest urge to get up and show him exactly what he looked like without the meat suit on. Ah, but that was against the rules and that was something that really shouldn't be tampered with unless he was dragging someone down to the pits. Like he was supposed to be doing with Steve coincidentally, but those same rules said no casualties that weren't their targets – the less hunters that existed the better for their business after all.

"Steve talks about me?" And what Steve had to say about him would correlate exactly to how he was going to treat him when they went downstairs for good, and for some reason his own well being wasn't the highest thing on that priority list.

Sam took another second to watch what he perceived to be a man's body in a flawless suit tense up slightly beneath his gaze. His voice was still hard as he said, "Steve said that you gave him and his mom medicine when he was a kid and that's why he's still alive today. Then he said that you got together again last year and chatted about s'mores and the meaning of life. I get the feeling that half of that is the truth and the other half is a bold faces life, but Steve never lies. Never. So what's got me wondering is what exactly he's tied up in, that _you_ probably tied him up in, to get him this way." Sam was almost startled by the way that the man named Buchanan had visibly relaxed at his statement, but didn't reveal it. He didn't trust that guy enough to do that yet.

"So Steve just said that I helped him, huh?" Buchanan scratched at the back of his borrowed head in awkward relief (seriously, he was glad that Steve didn't say anything because that meant that he wouldn't get caught for bending the rules a little bit but this feeling was just ridiculous), "Well, he's not wrong."

"Are you going to tell me why he's indebted to you, or are you just going to leave me hanging?" Buchanan sent Sam a look that answered his question. Sam sighed and rubbed his face with harsh palms, like Buchanan and Steve's unknown relationship was a wart on his life. "Fine. But let's get something straight before you take up any thoughts on Steve's reciprocation of whatever you've done for him."

"Steve is special," Sam was leaning forward on the worn couch, his elbows on his knees and staring at the old carpet like it would tell him what to say, "Always has been. When we met I had just moved in to the apartment across the hall and hadn't met any of the nearby kids yet. I was taking a walk around the neighborhood, minding my own business when I hear fighting in the alleyway. And what do I see? I see this kid made of skin and bones and maybe matchsticks because there's a fire in his eyes that I'd never seen before. He was fighting off three guys twice his size at once and I just couldn't leave him there so like the idiot I am I hopped in next to him. We sent them packing, but we had a few good hits of our own too. And while we were getting patched up and yelled at by his mom we became friends."

Buchanan felt the feelings of humorous irony, bitter nostalgia and intense jealousy all at once and he didn't like to think about what that meant. "That sounds like him."

"I know, but do you see what I'm saying? Steve doesn't have a survival instinct. He doesn't care about what happens to him and he will do anything to help another person. Even if they don't need it. And now that he's a good looking guy with a penchant for doing anything and giving anything, people are starting to realize it, too. Bad people." A significant look towards Buchanan was all he needed to understand.

"You think I'm going to take advantage of him. Of his kindness and his stupid need to please everyone."

"Am I wrong?"

Buchanan gratefully didn't have the chance to answer, as Steve called from the kitchen, "S'mores and hot cocoa's up! Buchanan, Sam, come and get it before I eat it all myself."

Sam stood from the couch, his eyes never leaving Buchanan's as he looked down on him. "You're eyes are blue, like any other person's, but they don't hold any soul in them. If you keep hanging around Steve, he's going to notice too, and try and do anything to bring life back into them. If you make him do anything that will ruin his life, anything that is even remotely questionable in its activity…I will find you. And I will not hesitate to kick a hole so far up your ass that you won't be able to see the sun without looking at my boot. I will find other people, people that want to protect Steve even half as much as me, and we will make you hurt, hurt like the Devil himself has you. He might like you, but I don't trust you." With that, he left for the snacks.

Buchanan watched from that body's eyes Sam's rigid posture, his straight back and clenched fists. Phil Coulson's body (for that was the meat suit's name and he didn't know why he looked for the name but it seemed appropriate in Steve's home) shuddered in…not fear. Not anger. Was that…sadness? Why the hell would Buchanan be feeling sadness?

Steve was a job. That's what he's always been, that's all he ever would be. And yet, after what Sam had told him, about Steve's inherent kindness towards all, his inability to back down to a bully, his natural instincts to protect – they were all traits that Buchanan's Steve had. And the way that Sold Soul Steve was growing, he was like Buchanan's Steve in so many ways and yet not at all. Buchanan's Steve was reckless and a little selfish, putting the big picture before an individual. He was thin and small, scrappy and prone to cussing out a storm when someone did something he viewed as wrong. He couldn't cook worth a damn and would've lived off of hardtack for the rest of his life if Buchanan hadn't taught him the basics. But Sold Soul Steve could cook, was giving beyond all measure, fought the small battles for the near future rather than thinking ahead, was gentle. They were so different but – they had the same (Buchanan couldn't describe it any other way) _fire,_ a need to help people and a magnetic force that brought people to them and the best people want to protect them and that light that shone from them.

_No, he's not ready now either. I guess I'll just have to wait a little bit longer._

"Buchanan?" Steve poked his head over the bar to the living room. There was nothing there except a lingering smell of ashes and burned lilies.

_**o~o~O~o~o**_

_**Summer, 2009**_

Buchanan chose that particular night because he knew that the mother and Sam were gone at the same time. Steve's mother was away to stay at her new fiance's house for the weekend and Sam's basic training started that weekend, leaving Steve truly all alone. No, he didn't stalk Steve (stalking was for predators and perverts, of which Buchanan was neither) he just scanned the surrounding building and found that even his next door neighbor wasn't there, which was just the most perfect opportunity for the crossroads demon to go in and snatch his payment and leave.

The sky would have been lit up by a half moon supposedly, but at a storm's insistence nobody but the weatherman knew for sure. Fat water droplets fell like bullets and stung when they went into contact with the skin, never mind the fact that they felt like newly melted ice in the mid-summer mugginess, while the clouds clogged the sky and descended into a cold mist around the body.

Buchanan thought it would have been more dramatic and thereby more demon-like to catch Steve unawares in an alley to drag him off to his death and eternal suffering. However, after five minutes of weather worse than Hell's the crossroads demon spat, "Fuck it, fuck me, and fuck my fucking death," he teleported (that neat demon trick that Buchanan was actually quite happy to use to his advantage) into his charge's living room and waited there with the lights off, intent on the surprise this time. Steve was definitely going with him this time, no matter what.

It was nearly nine o'clock at night, long after Buchanan was dry while lounging in the darkness (demon's eyes didn't need light after all) when he finally became bored enough in waiting to go up to the bookcase on the left (oh, two bookcases now, that's new) and start scanning the rows for something mildly interesting. The last two rows were what finally caught his attention, as dozens of spiral and bound journals were crammed together and budged for space from one another. Grabbing the last one on the end, a spiral black cardboard book with at least two hundred pages, he randomly flipped to a page.

And stared.

Buchanan was beginning to see a pattern in the things that were Sold Soul Steve related, mainly the vast amount of staring and slight awe at his too-good humanity. But that – what was on the page was truly stare worthy.

It was a picture of Buchanan when he first encountered Steve, his true body because only the true bodies of demons could make the contracts. The attention to detail was beyond anything he'd ever seen before outside of a photograph, but there was no doubt that the head-shot was pencil. And the way that he was portrayed, well, Buchanan would be lying if he said that he looked less than demonic, but it wasn't a threatening picture. There was no snarling or squinting or gnashing teeth like he would have expected of a demon portrait, but rather a cocky slant of lips and a guarded kindness in the eyes that were a flat black from edge to edge.

Buchanan flipped to the next page, and sure enough there were other head shots of Buchanan, in his true body, as Maria Hill and Phil Coulson. He wondered, for a single fleeting thought that was stamped down on as soon as he acknowledged it, if his new body, Clinton Barton, would get his own head-shot too. What a ridiculous thought. Buchanan was _going_ to take Steve down to Hell as soon as he came back. But until then, it wouldn't hurt to look through the rest of the sketchbook. And the next one after that to then slowly make his way through the whole second to last shelf, all the sketchbooks put back once he was done looking through them.

But that first picture of his true body kept coming back to him, kept making him put down the current sketch of a cat or an old man or Sam and go back to the original one he'd seen. It wasn't until he found himself just looking at it for the hundreth time that he'd had enough and just tore the page out (he flinched at the sound but he was a demon, he was hardcore enough to take a page out of a sketchbook) to fold carefully and place gently in his inner jacket pocket. Rather, his current body's inner jacket pocket but he'd get it later.

At almost the exact moment he'd turned back to the current sketchbook there was a jingling and a jangling of keys at the door. Buchanan dropped the sketchbook and hopped over the back of the couch to land in its cushions like a waiting prince to a servant. It wasn't until Steve stumbled through the door like an old cripple, the light from the hall casting soft shadows onto his slumped body, that he knew something was wrong.

Steve turned on the lights of the apartment with a simple _flick!_ His eyes were on Buchanan before the apartment was even lit, red rimmed and glassy with flushed cheeks and a hitch to each breath. His voice, cracked and soft, croaked out a single word.

"Buchanan."

The crossroads demon was off the couch and striding to stand only a few feet from Steve before he knew what was happening. "Steve? Steve what's wrong?" Oh Lucifer, why did he _care?_

"It was, um," Steve stumbled over his words, leaning onto the kitchen bar for support but leaning towards Buchanan for…whatever reason. "Uh, Mr. Bottlebee. He, he um, he's…" Buchanan took a cautious step step towards his charge, getting ready to grab him if he was going to topple over. Steve's face was bloodless white, frightening in its brutal honesty and unadulterated wide-eyed nausea. Buchanan had a flash of what Steve looked like that night he had sold his soul, then determined that he looked much worse than from back then.

"Take a seat before you hurt yourself, Stevie," Buchanan said and firmly shepherded the young man to the worn out couch. It didn't even register what he had said until he sat himself beside his dazed charge. The demon felt something heavy in his stomach drop beside a stone load of worry (what? When did that happen?) and stress. Pushing away those thoughts, Buchanan promised to look at them later. "Alright, now tell me what's wrong? Why'd you look like someone just d-" the crossroads demon's eyes widened. "…oh."

"He – Mr. Bottlebee I mean, he – this afternoon and the police called me to, to _identify him_, and I just, I couldn't cry in front of them! I held it together with all their questions and their stupid interrogations and it was…it was _horrible_. They thought that, that someone had _murdered_ him because he was a lottery winner twenty years ago and he just stuck it all in a bank and oh god. _They thought I was after his money_." There was no holding back the uproar of wails and sobs, the raining tears that rivaled the downpour outside, and all Buchanan could do was watch as Steve curled himself into a ball on the cushion to bar away the world.

Buchanan didn't know the full extent of Steve and Mr. Bottlebee's relationship, but he did know from his daily surveillance that Steve always visited the old man at least twice a day, listening to stories from the past and dreams that he had then and the day before, sometimes happily listening to the same story told twice in the span of twenty minutes. If one didn't know, then it was easy to mistake them for close grandfather and grandson, best friends even despite the generations that separated them.

And now Mr. Bottlebee was dead.

Cursing himself for the lack of luck and the police for their lack of subtlety, Buchanan made the heroic decision of slowly raising his arm to cross the shoulders of the sobbing young man. Steve didn't flinch or scream as the demon was expecting (sympathy from a demon was the lowest kind of mockery for most humans), didn't punch or fight and didn't even stiffen. No, what happened was a solid mass of human body launching at Buchanan, wrapping iron cable arms around the demon's stolen middle and pushing the two of them into the couch cushions, Buchanan's uncomfortably hitting the couch's arm behind him while Steve's mussed blond head was laying atop Buchanan's chest. Buchanan was half sitting up and half lying down with Steve on top of him, and he could feel each sob reverberate throughout his body, each tear soak through Clinton Barton's flimsy T-shirt to bathe him in human grief and loss.

Steve didn't seem to notice the change in position, the way he curled up on Buchanan's chest or was cramped up on skinny legs and the other end of the couch and Buchanan didn't know how to tell him that he'd probably be seriously sore later if he stayed that way. Instead, an old memory floated to the surface from Steve's lake of tears on Clinton Barton's T-shirt.

_"There there, Sergeant. He fought till the very end. He died a prouder soldier's death than you or any General could ever dream of."_

_The soldier wailed and screamed, wordlessly begging the world to stop spinning and just die with his heart. He knelt beside the cold bed of the most important person in the world, the one who should have had the greatest future, clinging onto a limp icy hand that was only growing stiffer every passing minute._

_No one deserved to die less than Steve. No one. Because the only people that were living were the big shots and their next of kin or the kids that new someone who knew someone. Steve didn't have any of that, but he was worth a thousand of those miserable maggots. He fought and he died and he suffered for months before he finally allowed infection to take him._

_Everything was wrong. Everything was so wrong and everything would never be the same again and everything would be worthless now that Steve was gone. He could only screw his eyes shut as the shear unfairness of it all, that same child's belief that if he couldn't see it then it didn't exist a slight ease on his mind._

_"Shh, shh," the nurse was kind old woman, whose empty eyes shone with kindness and understanding deeper than he could have ever needed to see. Her wrinkled hands pet a soothing rhythm into his shorn hair, so like a lost memory of a fever dream he had as a child when it was just him and Steve against the world. "There there, child. You shall see him again someday."_

_"But I don't want to just have it be someday!" He remembered that particular howl like it was imprinted on his entire being, "I want Steve here, now, with me! He said till the end of the line, and the end of the line isn't now!" He clung to the old nurse's skirts with the hand that wasn't holding Stevie's, her hands around his shoulders and in his hair the only thing keeping him half way sane, "I can't live without him now. Not like this!"_

_The old nurse stilled her motions, and it forced him to finally bring his head away from the soaked apron of her uniform and look up into a face that promised the world and everything in it. "I might know how I can ease your pain."_

Buchanan shook his head of that old memory. Steve was slowly coming down from his grief stricken crying, and it had finally de-evolved into pitiful, pathetic sniffs and sharp intakes of breaths that exhaled the slightest of whimpers. Steve's eyes were still clamped shut from the world, but Buchanan's hand was combing through blond strands and it seemed to be doing the trick. The demons couldn't say when he had started petting the young man, but whatever works, works was his favorite philosophy. He was half tempted to stop just for the fact that it made him remember something atrocious and wrong from his old life, but he could honestly say that he was not equipped to handle his own emotions, let alone the emotions of a wrecked nineteen-year-old.

Buchanan's hands hitched in its movements before continuing without another interruption. _This Steve is nineteen years old,_ the crossroads demon examined the way the light bent around each rain dampened golden hair, the way that Steve's weight while heavy wasn't entirely uncomfortable and only one of those things was like his Steve. _This Steve is going to die at the same age as my Steve._ It was that thought that halted all of Buchanan's processes, his thoughts and his hand and perhaps even his heart.

After several seconds of stillness, Steve took a final wet sniff and turned his head to look up at Buchanan whose face was stone hard and unreadable. "Buchanan…?"

"What?" Buchanan snapped out of his panicked daze to look down into Steve's bloodshot glassy eyes and the first thought that struck him was how goddamn blue they were, as deep as the sea and as expansive as the world. They were the exact same as they were when he was a child, and that fact ate his guts. "Sorry, got a little lost there for a second. My thoughts are not the best place to go wandering in sometimes." Buchanan cleared his throat, "Are you, uh, well…"

Steve's smile was tiny and pathetic and didn't deserve to really be called a smile, but Buchanan was taking his victories as he went (victories? When the hell had this Steve started taking the place of his Steve?) and he continued his petting the same way he had been. Steve closed his eyes more gently this time, sighing and laying his head back down onto the crossroad demon's chest. "Better, just a little bit. Thanks for being there. I just, I needed to cry and sorry I got your body's shirt wet. Sorry, it was stupid of me to just break down on you like that, when you needed to get your job done and all."

Steve's voice wasn't much more than soft croaking but Buchanan could honestly say that it was preferable to the crying. "That's fine," his voice was just as low and soft as Steve's because for some reason it seemed a terrible farce to be anything close to normal right that moment, "Everyone needs to mourn whenever they lose someone they love. It's only natural. I was just remembering someone I had lost too, a really, really long time ago. I remember all these things that were useless and what I thought was worthless to know about him at the time, and I can honestly say that it's those same little things that still stick in my mind the most. What can you say, makes you think about your person so much?"

Steve let out a little hiccup before he answered. "Mr. Bottlebee…He was 94. He'd seen the World Wars, had even fought in World War II. He'd lived through the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, the Stock Market Crash, the Civil Rights March, Kennedy…He was the first friend I ever made when we moved here. I was three, I can't even remember my father or my siblings or my other family. They say that it was retrograde amnesia, because I was in The Car Crash, too. My mother and me, we moved here and that's the beginning of my memory. Mr. Bottlebee was always there. He told me stories, taught me to draw and army cadences. He even broke his hip trying to teach me how to ride a bike." Steve opened his eyes just a bit to stare at the wall to the kitchen opposite them, a tiny real smile trying to come to life on his lips, "Man, my Mom was more mad at him than she ever was at me because she thinks he taught me to be reckless! No, well maybe, he is the one who showed me how to throw a punch so I could protect myself and others. He's the one who taught me never to throw the first punch, to always stand up for the little guy…"

Buchanan didn't say anything when Steve curled up into him a little bit more, clung to his body a little bit tighter. Buchanan didn't say anything as he continued his petting. Buchanan didn't say anything when it seemed that Steve might have cried himself to sleep wrapped around a demon.

Buchanan didn't say a damn thing when the urge to kiss his charge's forehead entered his mind. He just leaned down the little bit and did it, a dry press of lips to a pale forehead.

And he couldn't do it. Not tonight. Next time. Next time he would bring this Steve to Hell, but tonight, tonight he seemed to have suffered enough.

Buchanan would think about his thoughts in the morning, after a nap, after a short rest with just his eyes closed. The crossroads demon pulled the blanket that draped the back of the couch over Steve and himself, leaving just enough room for Steve's head to be visible. Buchanan wiggled his borrowed body down as much as he could without waking Steve, having his head resting on a couch pillow he found on the floor and Steve's over his heart. They're legs were intertwined with each other and too long, so they stuck out over the arm of the other couch arm like ill fitting dolls on a too small bed.

None of it mattered though, when Steve scooted up just a bit to nuzzle his nose into Buchanan's neck, receiving his full fireplace and incense scent with a deep and satisfying breath. It made Buchanan's face feel hot and strange, but in a good way he hadn't felt in decades so ignored it. He just settled down and decided to do something for himself for the first time in fifty years.

Buchanan, crossroads demon with the perfect record, more souls delivered in his run than most contractors would believe, closed his eyes and pretended. Tonight he was human. Tonight, he would sleep in peace. Everything else could wait until the sun came up.

It was the first night, in a very long time, that he was Bucky again.

_**00000000000**_

_**Okie doke kiddos, comments? Opinions? Quick edits? Rage noises? Whatever you have to offer I'm happily willing to receive. **_


	4. Mistaken (?) Receptions

A/N: Yo! Buttons here with another installment of _From Edge to Edge_, which has become the longest fanfiction I've ever written as of last chapter. Not gonna lie, this has been some fabulous therapy for me and a great tool for me to get back into the swing of things. So, without further ado, here you go!

P.S. Sorry this came late but I just started some fast track college courses and its like having two classes in half the time so I'll be a bit busier, not to mention my lovely mother is being, well, herself so updates may become a bit spottier. Nevertheless, THIS SHALL BE FINISHED OF THIS I VOW TO YOU ALL. I'M WITH THIS FIC TILL THE END OF THE LINE!

P.P.S. This chapter fought me every step of the way. I kid you not. I love Angela, she's a sneaky woman, but Buchanan and her just…BLEGH. Also, it was supposed to be shorter. Oops. I guess this chapter just counts as some minor exposition and filler until you get to the end. I got _Crowley_ in this chapter.

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't gain. Simply to entertain.

_**Chapter 4: Mistaken (?) Receptions**___

_**Summer, 2009, the next morning**_

Steve always believed, from the bottom of his heart, that his mother would never meet a demon. Not because he didn't believe it couldn't be done, more like he believed that his mother was so perfect that it just _wouldn't_ be done. Some unknown rule of the universe declared that Angela Rogers would never meet a demon, in Steve's mind at least, and thus far she hadn't. It was just mere coincidence that a demon was sleeping beside her son the day after a family friend died.

Not that Mama Rogers knew Buchanan was a demon. Just that a strange and rather scraggly looking man was sleeping quite cozily underneath her son that did not leave room for much doubt as to the state of their relationship (she believed).

Angela glanced at the clock that hung above the door frame to the bathroom and saw that it was nearly one in the afternoon. She then looked back to the couch, nearly jumping out of her skin when she saw the unmistakable gleam of blue that came from the open eyes of the man on the couch. She didn't make any noise, just waved in what she hoped was a friendly way (it was stilted, awkward, obviously uncomfortable) and quietly disappeared into her room, to deposit a duffel bag of clothes and personal items. It wasn't even a minute later that she went back out into the living room and contemplating if she could make brunch quietly when she saw a stirring on the couch.

"Good morning, Steve," Angela said to her son whose first actions seemed to include stretching his arms around the man tighter in an attempt to stay together while still getting his muscles going. The man (handsome she thought, although there was something wrong in the way he seemed to look straight into her with soul sucking eyes) glanced down at Steve with eyes soft around the corners but tight around the mouth.

_Oh. That's wonderful. And sad._ Angela knew that look immediately and resolved to talk to her boy as soon as possible about it.

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, Steve looked up at her with tired eyes, a glassy spark that didn't go away entirely in the night. He rasped out, "Hi Mom.

"Hello, my Steve," Angela felt a soft smile on her lips as she watched her son look up at the man with something like awe and she couldn't help but feel elated and uncomfortable all at once. Who was this man that had her son's devotion who she knew nothing about? Wasn't he just a little bit too old? "What would you and your friend like for breakfast this morning?"

Angela saw some form of silent communication pass between Steve and the strange older man, before Steve turned to his mother finally, "I think there's eggs and bacon in the fridge? Can we have some of that please?"

Angela only nodded as she went into the kitchen, her mind whirring in fifteen different directions and only one way to actually get any of it sorted. "Twenty minutes until then, Steve. Before you go shower though," she looked pointedly at her son, who hadn't moved an inch from his position wrapped around the man who had adopted a carefully blank look, "perhaps you'd like to introduce me to this man?"

Steve didn't answer at all. "My name is Buchanan, ma'am," the strange man said who also seemed quite content in Steve and he's position. "I've known Steve for a while now. He might have mentioned me?" From the knowing look that came into his sharp blue eyes her face must have shown what she knew. "Yup, I'm that Buchanan. It's nice to meet you, Mama Steve. Although, I wish we could have been…acquainted under different circumstances."

For some reason Steve sent Buchanan an appalled look (oh now that was interesting, Angela was definitely tucking away that bit of information away to be considered for later) but Buchanan seemed to be staunchly ignoring the look in favor of smiling charmingly at Angela.

"Well, it's nice to finally meet you Mr. Buchanan, I'm Angela," she moved closer towards the kitchen on light feet, but kept the two on the couch in her sights, "and Steve – wash up now honey, unless you want a cold." Steve actually looked like he wanted to argue for half a second (and this is what Angela viewed with a motherly "finally!") before he did as he was told, getting up with a dissatisfied groan and wobbly feet. Angela didn't miss the way that Steve's arms tightened around Buchanan for a second before sending Buchanan an unreadable look (which was also something new to her Steve, as he'd been easy to read since the day he was born) to finally toddle off towards the bathroom.

Once the door to the bathroom was heard to close with its customary click and squeak, Angela finally turned her attentions towards Buchanan. He seemed oddly lost, shut down from the outside forces of her looks and the way the sun flickered through the window to land on his skin. Nothing fazed him because he refused to acknowledge the way anything was real. Now, Angela would be the first to admit she was born at night but it certainly wasn't last night.

"Buchanan?" Said man jolted at the sound of his name and turned towards her, eyes wide from being pulled from whatever head-space he occupied. Well, Angela would have none of that lonely thinking in her home. "Why don't you come help with the settings and things? I'm sure it'll help get your blood flowing for the day."

And because things were strange sometimes, especially in bad times, Buchanan followed Angela into the kitchen without a word or any other acknowledgement. He didn't even need to stretch when he picked himself off the couch from where 175 pound Steve had been sleeping on him, just rolled off cool as could be with eyes far warier. What her son saw in this man, she was about to find out.

When Angela saw the man start going through her cabinets with some stiff familiarity she knew that he had been to their apartment more than once. The fact that Steve had never introduced them was then something of an anomaly as Angela had met all of Steve's friends. Buchanan…he was different.

"So how did you and Steve meet, Buchanan?" Angela inquired, when supplies had been set out and only moments away from being tossed into a heating pan.

Buchanan didn't stop his setting of the table, but he did stiffen slightly. "We've known each other for a long time," he said to the table, "but we only see each other off and on because my job takes me to different places all the time."

"Oh? And what do you do?"

This time there was an stilted pause, the only sounds disrupting it being the snap of cooking bacon and the shower running where the soft murmurs of Steve's singing voice could be heard. Angela was about to retract her question when finally the man said to the cup he was placing down, "I work as a contractor. I fix problems for people and they pay the price I set. Nothing glamorous, just something that's kept me busy for years." He let out a bitter chuckle, "Once you're in the business, you're in till they suck you dry. The company owns my soul."

"It sounds like hell to work for them." Angela had meant it has a sort of off hand joke but Buchanan just threw his head back and laughed and laughed and laughed until he finally had to pull a chair out and plop himself in. Otherwise he'd probably have been on the floor rolling and clutching the stitches in his sides. Angela could only watch and hope that the bacon didn't burn while she was watching because the sight was both beautiful and sad.

Angela knew what a laugh sounded like when the person hadn't done it in a while.

"How did you know?" Buchanan managed to calm down enough to wheeze out something, his grin surprised and not all at once, "Just, you and Steve both surprise me. Maybe it's just something you taught him, huh?"

Angela only shrugged with a generous smile. "My boy is a lot like me, I'm afraid to say. He's going to be terrible at math for the rest of his life and never remember a single historical date from history class and I have no one to blame but genetics. What do you think, Buchanan? What kind of quirks did you have in school?"

There it was again, the shuttered look with the charming smile that set Angela's flags up. "I was never much for studying," he said, "that was more my friend's department than mine, although you'd never know because of all the trouble he got up to when he was anywhere near another human being."

"Were you much of a troublemaker, too?"

Now his smile showed genuine fondness, even if his eyes were downcast. "I was more of a troublemaker by proxy because of him. He would always go around and beat up on the bullies that picked on the little guys, always the one to throw the first punch if you so much as looked at a girl with a sleazy eye. Tiny little guy thought he was this huge hulking figure that thought he could save the world if he worked hard enough."

It was Angela's turn to chuckle now. "That sounds just like my Steve with a stronger temper. Always up to fighting for the underdog. It was Mr. Bottlebee who taught him to fight with a value in mind, actually." Her small happiness fizzled out at the thought of her valued friend and Buchanan could nearly see the ache take hold of her body. She continued to cook on autopilot but Buchanan knew immediately that the food would be bland and tasteless. "If it wasn't for him I don't think Steve would have ever known what it was like to have a male figure around. It's good that Bill's around now but I just didn't find him soon enough to really matter to Steve. I don't know what I'm going to say to him now. Mr. Bottlebee was like the father and grandfather and friend and mentor that Steve never had anywhere else. What do I say to my Steve now?"

Buchanan was silent in the kitchen chair. He could only see Angela's back, but one didn't need eyes to see the slight hunch and tight shoulders, the rigid spine and the heavy weight that appeared to be soaking into her very bones. It was that moment when he thought of Peggy, all those years ago, when she was trying to keep herself together after learning that Steve, Buchanan's Steve, had been shot. They both couldn't stand to ask for advice, knowing that their business was then the business of another person's. Buchanan could only imagine how vulnerable Angela really was, because he had to face the truth. She didn't know him but was asking for help.

"I think," Buchanan didn't know what he was saying but he had heard it in her tone, oh hell he was going to say something offensive and tasteless and then he would never get the tiny real smile from Angela or Steve (because he would follow his mother to the ends of the world without a word) again and for some reason that was really important to him and he didn't know why and he really should have just kept his mouth shut but for some reason it happened to open on its own and oh devil he was going to make such a _huge fucking mistake_ and he should really stop panicking because Steve's Mom was bound to pick up on it –

"Buchanan?" There was her concern and it tore Buchanan to shreds. He was a demon. She was a human. She taught the pure hearted Steve to be who he was practically by herself. Concern for a demon. What a joke. What a hell-fucking joke. Because she needed some help and she was still helping a demon first (not that she knew but it was the principle of the matter).

"Oh, sorry Ms. Rogers," Buchanan sent out his most dazzlingly smile but it only preceded to make Angela's brow furrow and her mouth turn down in worry (the exact same as her son Buchanan noted). "I guess I just needed a second to figure out what to say without sounding like an idiot. But, I suppose, if you really wanted to show that you're there for him then you just be there."

_That sounds so fucking lame_, Buchanan spat in his head to himself. _She's already lived through the tragedies of her entire family dying she doesn't need – OH._

Buchanan whipped Clinton Barton's head towards Angela at the stove, eyes wide in respect as she only smiled sweetly to him. She knew she was caught and didn't give a rat's ass. Buchanan, master crossroads demon with wiley wits could only be in awe at how a nearly fifty year old woman had played him like a fool.

"Well played, Ms. Rogers," Buchanan said. "You were trying to figure out if I was a threat. Those acting skills are amazing, you are wasted as a secretary." Angela could only let out a sly chuckle, something that Buchanan kind of hoped Steve had inherited because otherwise Steve was denser towards his mother than any human had a right to be.

"Don't be so sure," Angela continued to cook while the smirk still danced on her thin lips (Steve must have gotten his from his father then – wait why did Buchanan notice that?) and she only sent her guest a sideways glance. "Who knows – I might be a Broadway actress in reality and you would never have known the difference. 62' was a fabulous year for actors to be born I hear."

Buchanan was half way to believing her when Angela's entire countenance shifted into something unrecognizable as the sweet lady only a moment ago. Her back straightened to something that the military would be proud of, her cute poodle apron and her thin fuzzy slippers doing nothing to stop the intimidation the tiny woman suddenly had. Buchanan nearly wanted to shrink into the chair but feared that the mother bear would eat him alive if he so much as twitched an eyeball wrong.

"My son is a wonderful young man," she said seriously. "He's sweet, kind, and more loyal than anything ever created on God's green earth. And he hasn't been hurt yet because of it, but it's only a matter of time and you're just the suspect to do it."

Buchanan felt his mouth turn into the desert. "Ma'am, I assure you that I'd never hurt Steve on purpose."

"See, I don't quite believe that." Angela turned off the stove to stare down Buchanan straight in his empty eyes, and that he was sitting down as she was standing level with his eyes did nothing to deter the fact that she was scaring the ever living shit out of him. Angela Rogers, five feet and four inches scared the living shit out of him at the moment and Buchanan was demon enough to admit it. "You say that you meet up with Steve every so often because your job takes you to different places, but I remember Steve talking about you when he was seventeen. Then, you work for people who make you feel like you work in Hell. Your eyes are empty, but you have affections for my boy and you know he doesn't understand them. You get up and walk around my home like you been here before but Steve always introduces me to his friends. You don't want to meet me. So that just leads to one conclusion."

Buchanan could feel the cold sweat the prickled up at the back of his neck, his eyes never leaving the woman for a second as she took the few steps forward to lean down and glare with sharp eyes that could undoubtedly see into his soulless husk, could no doubt rip him apart with her bare fingernails if it meant protecting her son. For that moment, the steady eyes and the dead center glare turned from sky blue to English brown and Buchanan could only see Peggy staring him down and interrogating him.

_"What have you done, Barnes?"_

_"Nothing that didn't need to be done."_

_"He was dead. I saw his corpse with my own two eyes!"_

_"What does it matter, Peggy? You get your perfect world back, you get the best soldier you'll ever find again and I get someone to watch my back. What's the problem?"_

_"The problem is that he's supposed to be dead!"_

_"How is that a problem?! How is any of that a problem?"_

_"Because it's not right, Barnes. He should be resting in God's great gardens –"_

_"'God'? If there was a God, then he would never had let Steve die. If there was a God, then I wouldn't've done what I did to make sure that a good man didn't die."_

_"But he did die! He is dead, Barnes, Steve is supposed to be dead! You can't always fix things Sergeant, and what you've done has upset everything in this encampment for your own grief and respite. What about all those other men who've lost someone? Will they all sell their souls too so that they can die on a schedule? What happens then to the men that they saved – will the Devil taint them or will they try and sell their souls too so that their brothers will live again? It's a vicious cycle, Barnes. You shouldn't have done this."_

_"I don't care about all the other men and women in the world! Steve is the only thing that's keeping me here at all and if I have to die and burn in Hell for what I've done then I will go gladly because it was the right thing to do!"_

_"…You can't tell Steve."_

_"I wasn't planning on it. He'd throw a fit and get himself sick again if he knew."_

_"…So that's it then? You'll just burn in hell because you can't stand the thought of your own grief?"_

_"Yes."_

_"…You are by far the stupidest, most insane and possibly suicidal person I've ever met. But you're also the bravest, and that counts for more than anything else."_

_"Thank you, Peggy."_

_"Oh do shut up and get back to the barracks. And leave quietly, I don't want anyone talking inconsiderately just because we talked in my tent."_

_"Yes ma'am!"_

"You are, aren't you?"

The deadly tone of voice brought Buchanan back to the present so quickly he would swear later that he got whiplash. "I'm sorry?"

"I said, you're part of the mafia."

Buchanan could once again believe that Steve was her son. So, in as calm a voice as he could get without sounding patronizing he said to her, "I am not part of the mafia."

Angela only glared down at him some more before sighing in relief and going back to the stove to fiddle with the knobs and start the gas up again. "That's good, because Steve does not need to be hanging around those types of people. Especially without Mr. Bottlebee to show him who to fight for and who to avoid." Now, she looked sightly sheepish as she finished up an omeltte and it with some bacon strips on a plate in front of Buchanan. "I'm sorry about the whole interrogation thing. It's just, Steve can be a little bit naïve sometimes and, well, it'll back fire on him more times than it won't. He just speaks so fondly of you, I couldn't bear it if you turned out terrible."

Buchanan picked up a crispy piece of bacon between two fingers, "That's fine. I figured that everyone I came across who knew Steve would give me some type of threatening speech."

"Oh? Who got to you before me?"

"It was Sam, wasn't it?" Buchanan and Angela whipped their heads towards the doorway that separated the kitchen and the living room, a damp towel on his head and a miffed scowl on his face. "I love you Mom, but you and Sam can get a little over protective sometimes. Buchanan's not going to hurt me."

Buchanan had to physically suppress the full body twitch that he could feel coming up from his borrowed boots. He wouldn't be the one to hurt Steve, not unless he really had to, but he sure as the place he came from wouldn't be the one saving him.

"You introduced your beau to Sam before your own mother?" Angela had the gall to actually looked indignant despite sending her son into embarrassing sputters and Buchanan's body into a heated mess (oh wow, a blush, he was blushing, he blushed like a schoolgirl, ah crap), "Honestly Stevie, you don't know how much that hurts me."

"_Mom no!_"

Angela just giggled like someone half her age and looked even younger than that as she patted her son's cheek before quickly giving it an affectionate peck. "I know my Steve, I was just playing with you is all."

Steve was just teenager enough to roll his eyes before returning his mother's kiss onto her own cheek. "Jeez Mom, I thought I told you I wouldn't be dating for a while. And Buchanan is just a _friend_. Not any weird boyfriend feelings here."

"As it should be until you're out of college." Angela stepped out of the kitchen, throwing over her shoulder before leaving, "Finish cooking breakfast Steve, I'm going to take a quick shower. Buchanan, no high tailing it out of here until I get to eat with you."

Buchanan didn't stop the chuckle that escaped his lips in time to hide it from Steve, who simply smiled kindly and said, "Do you want to eat before we go? I feel like we should since it's kind of my go-to phrase with you."

Buchanan's mood immediately sobered, but he still kept his grin up. "That'd be fine, Steve."

As Steve busied himself with cooking again Buchanan took the initiative and nibbled at his bacon and omelette. In the process he realized a few things:

1) Bacon was the closest thing to heaven he'd ever get, which he was totally fine with

2) Steve didn't wear an apron while cooking, which Buchanan was also totally fine with (a T-shirt too old to have grown properly with its wearer was nicely stretched to give an appreicative view)

3) Steve's skills far surpasses even his mother's (according to the rule of bacon cooking) which Buchanan was very, very, _very_ totally okay with

"You look like you're enjoying yourself over there," Steve smiled with a glance over his shoulder, the small mountain of bacon he had been cooking quickly dwindling under the attentions of the crossroads demon.

Indeed he had been. "Bacon is so fucking awesome, I can't believe that I haven't eaten any in so fucking long," Buchanan said around the meat. "And by the way, you're fucking made of cooking magic or something because everything you cook tastes like it was sent from the Big Man Upstairs himself and that's not a compliment that I throw around easily. I'm serious, stop laughing at me!"

Steve just looked bashful then. "Thanks. And uh, thanks again for, you know. Being there for me. Last night. I know I made your job a hundred times harder than it needs to be, I just, I couldn't –"

"Stop right there." Steve, startled into silence, dropped a slightly crispier than intended piece of bacon back into the pan. Neither man nor crossroads demon made a move to help it. Buchanan stood up, crossed the small kitchen in only a few steps and placed himself firmly in the blond's sights. "You don't have to apologize for a damn thing."

"But I-"

"No butts, Rogers," Buchanan growled out, using his demonic undertones for seriousness. Noticing that the apartment would probably be put on fire if Steve kept loosing his attention, the demon waved his hand, causing the knobs to turn all the way off. Ignoring his charges amazed features, Buchanan barreled forward. "I know what its like to lose someone who was near and dear to you. I know what it was like to want to just bury myself under the floor until the ache stopped hurting and I know that's what you're probably thinking right now. I also know that sometimes humans hurt so much that now, right after they've lost somebody, that they don't mind leaving for Hell without a fuss. Well let me tell you something Steve – I'm not taking you today."

"_What_?" Steve looked genuinely confused, slightly put off and plenty of (actually) miffed. "You don't think that I can take it? Because I can. I made a deal with you, Buchanan, I made that deal fair and square. Just because you think that I can't handle a little stress is-"

"You were questioned for your father figure's murder." Ah, there was the full body flinch that Buchanan was waiting for. "Just because you were ready to be taken to the pit doesn't mean that you're any good to me now. You're so," the demon waved a hand around in a vaguely irritating way, "_emotional_. I can't deal with you like this, sorry. Don't give me that kicked puppy look, this was your way of escaping having to deal with all this heart felt crap that I like to avoid."

Steve looked pale. Very pale, looked unsteady, kinda was wobbly on his feet but that made it real easy for Buchanan to pull out one of the kitchen chairs and push Steve into it. "No Buchanan, you don't understand," Steve looked up and into Buchanan's black eyes, the orbs that only he could see, pleaded to the person that he might have been once upon a time, "I – I don't know if I can deal with this kind of thing again. Not having a father around, not having someone to tell me things that I need to know – I don't know that I can do it."

"So you're just going to leave out of cowardice?" Buchanan could feel the anger bubble up inside his shell, and his hands reacted without his permission, grabbing onto Steve's broadening shoulders a little too close to his neck. "You're choosing to go with me now – out of _cowardice_?"

"I don't _remember _any of them."

Buchanan blinked. "What?"

Steve took a shaken breath. "When I was four, there was a car accident. Everyone, all of my family, they were in there too. My brothers and sisters and aunts and cousins and my grandparents, we were all part of this massive seventy car pile up on the interstate. I never knew what happened or how it was caused, I just knew that one day I woke up scared and in a place I'd never been before. They told me it was amnesia and that's why I can't remember anything about the crash and I believe them on that. It's just that I couldn't remember anything about anyone even before that! Not my family, not the time or place, not even my own mother. Everything was blank and terrifying and I felt like I had been dropped off in the middle of a foreign country and I didn't know any of the languages or customs."

There was a tense lull that Buchanan eventually punctuated with a, "What?"

Steve's eyes were red rimmed and shiny again like they were last night, tearing up but refusing to cry. He ran a trembling hand through his hair and continued without an iota of the steadiness he had before. "Buchanan. What if I _forget_ Mr. Bottlebee because it would be too painful to remember him? What if what happened with my family and everything before the crash happens again? I need Mr. Bottlebee's memory to be a good person, I need him inside my head telling me what to do when I'm about to do something stupid and uncalled for."

Buchanan sighed and didn't stop the hand that reached up to run borrowed fingers though golden strands. Steve pushed up into the touch but the demon ignored that. "Then the answer is simple you dumb punk. You just make sure you hold onto him."

"How am I supposed to do that? I couldn't even hold onto my own father!"

"You do something, everyday, that reminds you of them. Say a phrase, sing a song," the unoccupied hand slipped into the jacket pocket and the fingers skimmed over a sketchbook page, "draw a picture, whatever you want. If you do that everyday for as long as you need to, you'll remember your old guy."

Steve wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands but didn't dare move his head lest the demon move his hand from his hair. They stayed like that for a moment, Steve with his head down and staring at his hands in his lap while Buchanan ran his hand through his hair with one and felt the edges of the folded up sketch with the other.

"Thank you, Buchanan."

The demon's hand jerked to a stop and he could feel his eyes widen. "No problem."

"No, I mean it," Buchanan dropped his hand as Steve looked up, "this, the whole advice thing. Thank you."

Buchanan was a fairly practical and realistic demon, he knew that he was strong and that he didn't embarrass easily and that the last time he had felt any true emotion of a smiliar magnitude was probably 1954. But that moment, the seconds shared between he and Steve were truly…he didn't have a word for it. It made him feel light and bouncy and at the same time real and important and not too little amount of heated affection.

_Affection. When was the last time I felt that towards anybody?_ Buchanan couldn't look away from honest blues that just swallowed up every single thing that the demon thought and then let him happily sink into their warmth with a personal invitation. _Steve, my Steve. This Steve is just the same as my Steve._

_He can't be_.

Buchanan saw Steve's grateful features droop into sadness and resignation. "Buchanan? Do you have to go again?"

The demon couldn't help the tiny smile he had and tried to cover it up with a little knuckle nudge against Steve's cheekbone. "Yeah. You're not ready yet today either. I'm come for you another day." Buchanan stepped back a few steps and was half a second away from teleporting before he quipped out, "Tell your mom not to be too mad at me for leaving early!"

And the crossroads demon teleported into the ether with the sound of a startled laugh echoing behind him.

_**o~o~O~o~o**_

"You really shouldn't have done that."

Buchanan only glanced over his shoulder to where a sturdy looking shade occupied the shadows. He didn't stop wiping his red stained hands on the torn rags of a once black T-shirt. "And why's that? Demons are supposed to kill humans on occasion. It's part of our nature, Mister Crowley."

"Now, that is true," the shade stepped out of the darkness and into the meager alley light, revealing a wide shouldered Armani clad figure with a sharp stubble that put an older face to the smooth, oily Irish accent, "but that's exactly the reason I'm coming to speak with you, Buchanan."

Buchanan finished removing what blood he could get from his hands and threw down the rags to the remains at his feet. "I'm not sure what you mean, sir."

"I think that you do." Crowley circled around him slowly, ever the shark waiting for the right moment, "And I think it has something to do with that little pet you keep forgetting to introduce me to."

Buchanan felt the body turn into solid stone with nothing but a stream of ice for blood and veins. "Sir?"

"Stop playing dumb with me, boy," the King of the Crossroads growled and advanced right up into Buchanan's personal space. "I know when you're lying, remember? I made you, I can tell exactly when you're being an idiot and so far that only happens when you're with your big blond retriever. A handsome face to be sure, but is he really the one you want to lose the wager to?"

Buchanan felt his teeth grinding and his shoulders tense up so much that it could have been used as a spring board. "What are you saying, Mr. Crowley? That I can't close the deal on him? Because he's already sold, we can take him any time we need."

"That's exactly my point," the Irish demon stepped back and sauntered over to the body's arms a few good feet away from the torso. Nudging them with an expensively clad foot Crowley said slowly, "You can take his soul any time you wish. In fact, he's a bit overdue, wouldn't you say?"

"His soul isn't ready for the pit yet," Buchanan said hastily. He cursed himself blind in his mind as kicked one of the leg bits up and into the dumpster, the lid clanging down with a loud and satisfying crash. The rest of the body needed to be put in there too, since it was the only fitting resting place for the murderer of a harmless old man and the only father figure of a certain someone. "He would've just cracked in a day. Alistair would've been done with him in no time, and I think we can all agree that Alistair needs all the entertainment that he can get. Right, Mr. Crowley?"

Buchanan looked up from the blood puddle to see his boss giving him a thorough look. When he finally spoke, the measured smoothness of his tone almost hid the nature of his words, "I think you have a point, Buchanan. And that point is that Alistair needs to keep his dirty mitts busy unless he wants to start toying with other demons again for his amusement. Naturally, he'd work his way up from grunts to couriers and so forth until he finally hit crossroads contractor. But why waste such a lot of valuable manual labor when I can just give him one of our prizes?

Buchanan interjected sharply, "What are you saying?"

"What I'm saying is that, if you don't get your act together then I'm feeding you to that pig," Crowley finally showed some emotion, a red face and a spitting anger. "Do you know how embarrassing it is to have one of my finest employees mooning after some kid from the projects? To know that one of the purest souls that we've come across in decades is being waited on because _you_ have a little crush? Get your act together or I will give you to Alistair myself after I've had cut your skin to pieces and fed you your fingers and toes. The next time you see that boy you will take his soul down into the pits. Anything less than a spectacular performance and I will make sure that Alistair knows that you'll be standing in for your little pet golden retriever. Do we have an understanding?"

Buchanan almost couldn't move, "But Mr. Crowley –"

"I said do we have an understanding, Buchanan? Or will I just take this insubordination as permanent mutiny and throw you overboard myself?"

Buchanan tried to swallow but his throat wouldn't have any of that, making him cough nervously. Goddamnit, he was caught out now? Already? Usually it would have taken another two or three years until he was found out.

"Say something Buchanan," Crowley demanded.

"Fine," the younger demon said flatly. He didn't make eye contact at his boss, but from the reflection in the blood he looked appeased. "Next time I see Steve…I'll take his soul."

"Good boy," and with a final smirk the King of the Crossroads disappeared, leaving a blessed Crowley shaped hole in the alley way where Buchanan just stood there. Didn't move, hardly breathed, tried to stop his existence for a precious few seconds that didn't come. The only thing that he wanted to do, right then, was keep his hand in the jacket pocket and clasp the sketchbook page in his fingers and not even look at it, just hold it and know that it was there and that Steve drew it. Steve drew _him_ had actually thought about _Buchanan_.

Because the next time he saw Steve…would have to be the last time. And that knowledge hurt Bucky more than he thought it could ever do.

_**00000000000**_

_**I'M SO SORRY THIS IS SO LATE MY SCHEDULE AND MY CLASSES AND MY FAMILY DRAMA AND JUST AUGH I'M SO SORRY!**_

_**If you would be so kind though, if you don't mind, I would greatly appreciate some feedback of any kind…**_


	5. Giving with No Regrets

A/N: Fuck, this chapter was something else. Just, heads up, **some dubious consent, some violence, underage drinking,** and **adhere to the tags**. That is all.

P.S. Just so you guys know, I love you all and I hope this delivers some much needed pay out. Believe me, this was something I've never written before and it got under my skin. Pay attention to any possible triggers and don't let anything worry you too much.

P.P.S The chapters get longer every time! I DON'T KNOW WHY.

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't gain. Simply to entertain.

_**Chapter 5: Giving with No Regrets**_

_**Winter, 2010**_

The night was freezing, the wind merciless and the only light to be had was from the sickly streetlamps outside and the half moon above hidden by spotty clouds. A winter storm was coming, and the bets in the old bars with the faulty heating and the greasy smells were saying that it would be the greatest storm to have been seen in decades. That was the perfect atmosphere for a soul taking. He had personal experience to make it a fact.

Buchanan was ready. He was as ready as he was ever going to be and he knew it. One year and a half was as much as he could push before he finally gave his soul away and goddamn it all he would not throw away his only chance on a punk kid with puppy dog eyes.

It just wasn't going to happen. He wouldn't let it happen. He _couldn't_ let it happen.

That's what brought him to his charge's apartment, the same and completely different all at once. By the looks of things it hadn't changed overly much, just the tell-tale signs of someone living alone like a carpet that hadn't been vacuumed in a supremely long time, one set of dishes in the sink, half the bookshelves scarce compared to what they had been. Honestly, for someone whose mother had moved out to live with her husband, the man clearly didn't have being a bachelor down yet.

That just left Buchanan sitting in the darkness of the apartment and a holey armchair stiffly, legs thrown over the side in a form of nonchalance that he didn't feel as he listened to living creatures outside scurry away to find shelter and warmth. His new body was more malleable than the others had been, this one a kind faced science student with glasses and annoying curly hair. But he also had the one thing that Buchanan needed to tap into as much as possible with this soul reaping – rage. The body (he refused to look up the name purely out on principle, didn't matter what that kid thought) had a vast array of wrath, the likes he'd never seen before. There was the simmering rage that lay beneath his skin, the bubbling bitterness at the world that was shoved to the back of the mind, the burning fury of the misunderstood and even an explosive violence so deeply locked away and buried that it could only come forth when in peril. But that peril was what he needed if his charge wouldn't cooperate.

_Clink clink! _Ah, finally. He was there, he was ready, he would take the soul and forget about it.

With the jingle in the lock came the creaking groan of the ancient door on its worn hinges, the light from the hallway invading the blackness in one long fan. But the figure in the doorway blocked the light, just stood there with slumped shoulders and a downcast head and the shadows shivered where the figure's edges trembled and shook. Then, as soon as Buchanan had noticed the shakes the figure became still. The back straightened up, the broad shoulders squared and the figure finally spoke with a voice soft and rough.

"Hi, Buchanan. Long time no see." Steve closed the door behind him, enveloping the entire apartment once again in darkness before flicking on the lights beside the doorway. Buchanan hadn't even looked away from his charge when the lights were on or off but in that time Steve flicked the switch he had turned away from him and was walking into the kitchen. "Do you want something before we go? I have s'mores!"

Steve's voice was casual but he didn't bother to take off his jacket or his shoes. Buchanan could feel alarm bells go off in his head and stood up from the armchair to walk slowly, nonthreateningly, towards the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. "Oh, you know, I think that'd be swell," he watched his charge go through the cupboards and get a candle out, some bottled water and other things with his face hidden each time. The first thoughts to cross Buchanan's mind were _séance_ and _exorcism_. "But I think I'd much rather see that pretty face of yours before it's chewed up by a hellhound. So if you don't mind, turn around and face me."

Steve stilled with a kettle in his hands. "I don't think that's a…a _bad_ idea," Steve's hands, large and callused, fiddled with the kettle in his hands. He worried at the surface with a rag like he was trying to buffer it and make it shine like new but the rage was already dirty and just made a bigger mess. "It's just that, my acne came back and it's terrible and I don't want you to see any of it. It's really bad, bad pus and redness and a whole lot of black heads and really it's just bad so why don't we just go and you don't have to look at me the whole time."

Buchanan's alarm bells had morphed into sirens by that point and they weren't for him any longer. "Steve?" The blond stopped messing with kettle. He very carefully placed it on the surface far away from him and gripped the counter with white knuckles. Buchanan stepped closer and into the kitchen, "Turn around and look at me. Come on now, it's been a year and a half you can't have changed that much." He really shouldn't have. Buchanan may not have seen him at all since their last meeting but that wasn't the point at all.

Buchanan placed a hand on Steve's elbow to try and turn him around but the demon felt a rock drop in his stomach when the young man jerked away from his touch like it was a hot brand. The blond took the half step away to huddle into the other side of the kitchen counter and this time Buchanan caught sight of the discolored skin around his wrist from where the jacket rode up just the slightest. Buchanan could only feel a distant sense of horror and rage rise up from his gut at the sight.

For a short moment they were both still as mannequins. "Take off your jacket, Steve." Buchanan's voice held no room for argument but when Steve didn't comply he said again with some demonic addition, "_Take off your jacket, Steve_."

Steve didn't say a word, just curled up into the counter like it could protect him. After a few seconds of tension, Steve let go of the counter and slowly, achingly slowly, he removed the jacket.

Underneath was only a plain white short sleeved shirt, the back soaked in what smelled like sweat that made it see-through. Buchanan couldn't stop the sharp breath if he tried (he could smell the panic, taste the remorse, had his senses overloaded with the sensations of empathy and pain but not regret).

"I know what it looks like and it isn't –"

"_Who the hell did this to you_?" Buchanan didn't mean for the demon voice to come out just then but it did in the face of Steve's back. The angels and the saints couldn't help whoever it was that did it to Steve. Whoever dug scratches so deep they were still bleeding in some places, the hand shaped bruises so dark they were almost purple, and the bite marks so red they could have been the marks of a starving dog – they were going to die. Buchanan didn't care if he had to come back to the surface early, someone was going to pay dearly for whatever happened.

Buchanan could just imagine the way that Steve's face buckled when his shoulders fell forward and his sigh was tired and gravely. "It's fine, Buchanan, I'm not really hurt-"

"The hell you're not," the demon could feel the anger from the body beginning to bubble up but he ignored it, "You look like you've just been five rounds with Atlas in the ring without gloves. I mean look at you. It looks like you just go attacked by a rabid raccoon."

Buchanan could hear the small smile in Steve's voice, "There's no raccoons in Brooklyn, silly."

"Doesn't matter," the demon continued with his passion not alleviating in the slightest, "You're hurt and it's more than just the outside that got a beatin'."

Steve's form frowned (and Buchanan was spending far too much time with this soul if he could tell an emotion by just body language from behind). "What do you mean?"

"I mean that someone hurt the substance." Buchanan quietly tip-toed towards Steve's side and reached out a steady hand, "You've told me that you've been beaten up before, protecting people. You woulda been proud of that and tried to show it off. This is somethin' different. Somethin' you don't want other people to see." If Buchanan let some of his old accent linger in vowels and round out words then Steve didn't notice it. The demon placed his hand, gentle like and comforting as he could make it, on Steve's elbow. "Show me what happened, Stevie."

There went the nickname that wasn't Sold Soul Steve's to claim, but it didn't matter in the face of –

"Mother of Hell!"Buchanan couldn't stop the expletive when Steve had finally turned. His chest and arms were hosts of all the things that his back had, but that his face was what made the demon see red. It was only marked by a large fist shaped bruise on his right cheek just below his eye, staining his cheekbone an ugly blotched violet. That mark was given with full force, without a thought for safety and simply to hurt something.

Someone had hurt Steve to _hurt_ him, not some game that ended badly.

Steve's eyes widened at the look of pure blood lust on Buchanan's face and gripped his shoulders placatingly. He looked the demon straight in the eye as he said, "This was all just an accident. I'm fine, Buchanan. I'm so good that we don't even need to eat, come on let's just go –"

"You're doing it again."

"What?"

The demon's black eyes glared with all the force of his inner fire. "Last time you tried to run away to Hell to avoid your problems it was because the closest thing you had to a father died on you and you were questioned for his murder. This time you're not even trying to be subtle about it."

Steve pulled his hands away to cross his arms over his injured chest (Buchanan immediately missed the warmth but Steve didn't need to know that) with a wince and another frown, this one guarded. "Maybe I'm just tired of always guessing when it's my time."

"Bullshit!" Buchanan spat. "You love making a difference with the time you have left and making sure that the people you love are going to be okay and then dying on your own damned terms! I know that until the day you die that the only thing you're going to worry about is whether you've been 'good' enough to make up for whatever sins you think you've committed when you're the purest thing –"

"I'm not _pure!"_

Buchanan's tirade halted in its tracks. The demon watched thin tears leak their way from where Steve had screwed his eyes shut in pain or anguish or maybe both, he couldn't tell. Steve was shaking again, his crossed arms wrapping around him like a false embrace. He was hunched over himself, like he was trying to make himself seem as small as he used to be, like he was preparing for an attack.

Buchanan forced himself to calm the fires of his body's mind with a deep breath. "What do you mean by that, Steve?"

"I mean… I'm not…" Steve hiccuped with his entire body shivering in tension. He seemed to be struggling with the words, forcing them out as much as he could without his voice quaking as much, "I'm not a… not pure anymore. So, so I should go with you and – and with all the people who aren't untouched like that –"

"You – 'people who aren't untouched like that' … Steve, you're not –" The demon's black eyes widened in horror as he came to a conclusion. "You were _raped?_"

"_NO_!" Steve shouted vehemently, "No, I was not _raped_, don't say it like that, it was just, I helped a friend and he, he was just feeling depressed and needed his mind to be taken to other places and so we went to the boxing ring but he wanted to – to do it and I let him." One long breath was how Steve got his message across, panting like he'd run across the whole city to say it. His blue eyes were wide and pleading to be understood.

Just like Buchanan's Steve.

_"Please stop being mad, Bucky!" Steve was looking up at him with more exhaustion than when he'd had pneumonia two winters ago but Bucky would still not be swayed in his righteous fury._

_"You got into the goddamn military, Steve!" He had shouted again. They'd had the same looping argument for the third time that day at the outskirts of the camp and they both knew that the rest of the men were avoiding them until they got their act together. Bucky suspected that it wouldn't be for a while at that they were going. "Everything that I did, to getting signed up on my own to working the triple shift at the docks to, to paying off the doctor to help you for as long as you were sick, that was so you could stay in the States!"_

_"I know!" Steve was so angry at Bucky that he was white faced with his fists shaking. He probably wanted to punch his best friend in the face (a completely mutual feeling). "And I was told that I'd never be healthy again if I didn't stop leaving home to go and find work on my own because I couldn't handle being by myself. The apartment has you every where in it, Buck! I couldn't even go to sleep in my own goddamn bed because I needed to know that you were snoring in the bed over and you _weren't_. And then I got to reading some of your old books again and you know what I read again and again and again, because you used to read it to me when I was sick?"_

_Bucky smiled weakly and responded on reflex, "_The Canterbury Tales_?"_

_Steve had smiled back, "'Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.'"_

_Bucky had felt his heart stutter to a stop. Steve didn't mean it like that, he couldn't have. So that just left him smiling his biggest brightest grin that couldn't reach his eyes. "I bet you say that to all the dames you're dating."_

_Steve huffed out a low chuckle, "It's not a romantic quote, you dumbo. It's meant to be quote that says that home is where the heart is, but in fancy terms."_

"It doesn't matter that you said yes, you dumbo," Buchanan said quietly. In the time he had been in his head Steve's eyes were red but for the most part he seemed to have stitched his control back together. Steve seemed taken aback at the sudden flatness of the crossroad demon's entire being, "It's that you did it to make _him_ feel better. You didn't want it, Steve. That's what makes it wrong. Stop being the damn hero and think about yourself for once."

The silence that followed was deafening, the only sounds the wind rattling the windows and the push of the tension on ear drums. Steve was staring at his demon's still form, just standing there. For a second (and only for a second so it must have been a trick of the faded light) the demon's eyes had stopped being a black abyss and looked the color of a stormy sky.

"What," when Steve finally spoke the softness was like the sound of shotgun and the blond winced. "What do you mean? I've always done things for myself. I'm the most selfish person I know."

Buchanan's head practically shot up and he didn't even care that he was gaping like an idiotic fish. "You – you think you're _selfish_? Are you out of your mind?"

"No, I am!" Steve was just so earnest, his honest blues boring holes into Buchanan's heart, "I'm so stupidly selfish that I'm only happy when other people are happy and I have to always get in the way of things to try and help people even when I know that it's none of my business and when something goes the way that I want it to I always feel so fucking smug that it disgusts me. I need to feel the victory over any situation, I need to feel like I've made a difference, I need to feel like _I left my mark._ I'm so selfish that I don't – I can't just be happy knowing that I did my duty as a son to help my Mama when I die because I know I did it wrong. I'm going to die before my Mama, and you know what? Parents are supposed to go first! My mother is going to be torn to shreds when she finds out that I died or disappeared or whatever happens because I couldn't live without her."

Steve lost control some time during in his speech. He tried to speak between sobs and tears at a stone faced wide-eyed demon but he just couldn't stop. It was what he had been harboring his whole life, his dirty secret. If he stopped at all he thought he would have just collapsed and never gotten back up again.

"Don't you see, Buchanan," the young man sobbed even as his knees finally gave out and he slumped to the floor with his arms around his body for the comfort he didn't deserve, "I'm the worst kind of human being. I'm not even human anymore, I'm just garbage. Trash. Low life scum. I couldn't live without someone to know that I existed, just for a moment, so I'm making my mother live longer than me. I didn't deserve all the extra time that you gave me. I didn't even deserve the wish you granted me. You should have just let me die when I was a kid and get it over with first before I could ruin anything else."

"Stop it! Just stop it!" Buchanan's voice shattered with his shouts, even as he knelt down to grab Steve's heaving shoulders to shake them forcefully, while still being mindful of the blond's injuries. "You are not selfish! You are not a horrible person! You are not a bad person. You are the greatest thing to have seen this world since the big man upstairs sent his son down to the humans and I'm almost certain that you're better. You sacrificed your soul for your mother's happiness and you still tried to make her even happier." Buchanan leaned forward until he wrapped his arms around Steve, his blond head resting on the demon's shoulder. The crossroads contractor held the young man tightly enough that Steve had no choice but to drop his own arms to his sides, limp and almost lifeless but he still tried to control his sobs when he couldn't even get a reign on them.

Buchanan continued and used his left hand to cup the back of his charge's neck to keep him close. He spoke lowly into his Steve's hair.

His Steve. Huh. It seemed right. It fit like a glove actually. This Steve, Sold Soul Steve, would be his new Steve. It seemed to be the only thing that made sense anymore.

"Stevie, I'm not gonna lie to you," the demon said, and he stroked the young man's hair as he did so like that night on the couch when the blond was an even bigger wreck, "The way that you make yourself sound makes me think that you believe you're the next Hitler or something. Now, I've fought against the Fuhrer and I have to say that the leader of the Third Reich did not feel a damn thing when slaughtered thousands." Steve whimpered in his arms and tried to get away, but Buchanan just held on tighter and continued to stroke his hair with a heavy hand, "But I know for a fact that you are one of the kindest, gentlest, most amazing people I've ever met. And when you talk about yourself like you're the Anti-Christ, well, that just makes the rest of us mere mortals feel like we're not ever going to do anything right."

"You're not mortal, Buchanan." The demon smiled at the thick muffled words said into his shoulder.

"Yeah, but you know what I mean," Buchanan said, "I've never met anyone like you before. You are sweet, and kind, and I'm not sure I even want you to go to Hell with me anymore."

Buchanan allowed Steve to pull himself up and out of the embrace to look at the crossroads demon in confusion, his red eyes watery and his breathing thick with mucus but at least he wasn't actively crying anymore.

"What are you –"

"I mean exactly what I mean," Buchanan cut off the question before it could evolve into something he'd rather not talk about, "I don't think you'd do well in Hell. In fact, I think you'd do great in it."

"But… why?"

"Because all of us poor bastards that live there, or I guess exist there is a better word for it, we all think that we belong there. That's what makes a demon powerful. The more they believe that they should be in the fires, then the more energy they have to draw off their left over humanity."

"I don't get it."

Buchanan smiled and used the science student's long sleeves to wipe away the remains of the tear tracks, going especially gently over the purple bruise. "Guilt is what makes us human. It's part of our conscience, that thing that makes us know right from wrong. Without it there wouldn't be any demons and we'd just all be animals in the wild like the rest of the world. And you have so much guilt, I think that you'd… be some real competition."

Steve looked Buchanan straight in the eye. "I get the feeling that the word of the day has become 'what'."

Buchanan chuckled. "Maybe. But, I don't want to have to fight you all the time. So, I'm not going to take you this time either."

"But Buchanan –"

"I don't care what you want," the demon cut in with a stern look, "I care about what I want and I want you to stay out of Hell for a while longer. Don't ask for special favors and say you want to go now, or tomorrow, or the next week or whenever you want. It's whenever I want and I don't feel like taking you whenever you feel like it. I'll take you whenever you don't want me to. So until then, I'm not going to do a damn thing you want, got it punk?"

Steve stared. _Oh, wow, that's a change of pace, Steve is the one that's staring this time and not me. A bad change of pace?_ The demon thought on it. _No, no I don't think so._

"So what happens now?" Steve's voice was just so tiny and vulnerable, Buchanan almost wrapped him back up in his arms.

"Now," Buchanan announced, getting to his feet and holding his hand out to Steve who looked at it like it was a complex puzzle he couldn't decipher, "we are going to sit on that same old couch that has more holes that fabric like we did last time and we are going to sit there until you fall asleep and feel better. Now come on, I don't have all night."

Steve didn't even hesitate when he looked up into Buchanan's gaze. He grabbed the demon's hand and the contractor used his supernatural strength to haul him up without a blink. Before the human could even move the demon was dragging him above the (the bruise was dark still and not hard to avoid) wrist to that very couch that held them and their sorrows.

And just the same as the time before, Buchanan flopped down first, pulling Steve carefully on top of him without a fuss after they both had removed their shoes. The bigger body (for Steve was much larger than the science student, whose rage was quelled to where only a blanket calm was left) settled easily and without a word, his nose into the comforting smell of fires and incense. Steve wrapped his arms up and around Buchanan's sides until his hands were settled onto the demon's shoulders from behind. Buchanan had one arm wrapped around the blond's torso and the other stroking through golden strands. Buchanan's foot nearest the back of the couch hung over the edge while the other trailed on the floor, leaving the rest of Steve to settle between the new opening.

Not a word was spoken when Buchanan shifted the blanket on top of them again, the same soft green that mismatched the terrible orange pillow at Buchanan's back.

Comfortable and calming, Buchanan only held onto his charge while the human's breath evened out and only the occasional sniffle could be heard. Steve let out a final shaky breath into the demon's neck and closed his eyes. The one who held him barely contained the electric feeling underneath his borrowed skin, allowing himself the only reaction of tightening his grip.

They stayed like that for some time, Steve with his eyes closed but awake and Buchanan petting him like the scared child he knew he was. If the demon was being generous with himself, he would probably admit to liking the feeling of closeness, of feeling like he was taking care of something worthwhile again.

The silence did not last. However, the one who broke it was just as surprised as the one who heard it when he spoke.

"Why do you always pet me?"

Buchanan's hand halted with half fingers in Steve's hair already. "Do you want me to stop?"

"No!" Steve squeezed the demon's shoulders tighter and buried his neck further into his neck to hide. Buchanan could feel the heat of a blush anyways and couldn't stop the smile that snuck its way onto his face. "I just… you seem to like my hair a lot."

"I do," the petting resumed with more confidence, "I like the color. It's a very clean and healthy shade of yellow, like corn."

Steve's snort of laughter was totally worth the stupid analogy, "Whatever you say, Buchanan."

A contemplative pause. "Bucky."

"Do I need to say the word of the day again?"

"No, I mean call me Bucky." Another tentative moment where the demon felt like hiding.

"Okay," came the simple reply, and the demon could feel a smile spread onto his shoulder. "Bucky. I like it, it's very… fitting."

Buchanan – no, _Bucky,_ smiled. A real smile that filled into a full blown grin that might have been a little on the giddy side. "I'm glad you approve." He squeezed Steve's back in delight only to immediately loosen his grip and fling his arm above the body on top of him. "Shit, sorry, forgot about the wounds there for a second."

"S'fine," Steve mumbled tightly before shifting back into Bucky's form, "Only hurts a lil'bit."

Bucky frowned at the obvious lie. "Alright then tough guy, it only hurts a little bit. But we still need to fix you up now that your emotional eruption has ended."

Steve let out an unflattering sound of annoyance. He tightened his arms around Bucky's body, "I don't wanna get up, I'm comfortable finally."

"I don't care. You're going to get tentanus and tuberculosis and die and then I wouldn't even get a say. You're getting up now."

Steve grumbled but did as he was told, cringing at the pain as he did so. Bucky said something along the lines of "I told you so," and went to the bathroom under the sink where all Brooklyn born know to stash a first aid kit.

To pass the time between bandaging and trying to not go on a homicidal rampage at seeing the full extent of the damage, Bucky asked questions about Steve. Where did he like to go? What did he do? What was his favorite thing to do when not talking to a nearly one hundred year old demon?

Apparently Steve's guilt ran all the way into his choice of work since he became a cop after finishing college early through some night classes. He liked to go to the nursing home and animal shelter between shifts and even the local orphanage when he could spare the time, which only made Bucky roll his eyes in exasperation and mumble something about how it was such a Steve thing to do. The art thing didn't surprise him, as he still kept the sketch page of his original body in a secret place.

When the questions were turned on Bucky though, that's when things got interesting. Where did he like to go? Everywhere of course. What's the use of supernatural teleportation if you're not going to abuse it sometimes (he never said how he avoided France and Brooklyn like the plague). He had been a contractor for decades and had pulled in nearly fifty thousand souls to their doom, but Steve didn't need to know that. Hobbies? Globe trotting, duh.

By the time the last bandage was set they had gone back to their original positions on the couch with the only difference being that Steve was shirtless and smelled like an old pharmacy and that Bucky was gentler when he placed his hand back down on his back. The hand in Steve's hair never stopped moving when they were satisfactorily cozy. It must have been another hour before Steve finally fell asleep, snoring softly and gripping Bucky from under his shoulders like a weird teddy bear, the demon's heat sinking into his tired body gladly.

Bucky didn't move for even another hour after that. It seemed too perfect to be real, too like his life and not enough like the death he had accepted. He savored the feeling of safety and, dare he even think it, intimacy. He knew that Steve shouldn't even look in his direction without hate in his eyes, but there he was holding onto him like he was the only lifeline in the world. And it was nice. Devil, it was dangerous to admit but Bucky was well and truly content to just exist the rest of his days away with the solid lump of humanity on his chest.

It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. It was the best feeling he could have ever had, the greatest thing to be after his evolution into something ugly and disgusting. Bucky couldn't bring himself to even contemplate the fact that he would never see either of his Steves ever again. It hurt. It physically felt like ripping his chest open to squeeze his heart in a vice that wouldn't let go.

There was only one last thing that Bucky could do for that Steve, and the young man could never know about it. Steve had said it was a mutual coupling and they may have consented but Bucky knew the difference.

Whatever man it was would pay in blood.

Bucky slid out of Steve's hold with only a little trouble. He watched the blond curl up on his side to hold onto the remaining heat Bucky left behind, cuddling into the ugly orange pillow rather than a body. Bucky tucked the blankets around him and by the end he looked like a contented child. Like the child he had been when he came to him with nothing but a huge eyes, a bad cough and a plea.

_"I," Steve took a few harsh breaths from the frigid air, the oxygen feeling like knives and daggers in his aching body, "I want my Mama to live and be healthy! No more sickness and she's not tired from her work when she gets home and she lives a long and healthy and happy life."_

And it had been the plea that had awoken his old heart. It'd been thirteen years since he first had laid eyes on him but even then is old self had known that Steve, anyone with the name Steve apparently, was worth the world.

_"No!" Steve was positively scandalized and Buchanan let his full body laugh escape without a hint of regret. "Never! It's just, sometimes I see things that other people would rather others didn't know about and I keep forgetting that not everyone sees the same things as me. It's caused a lot of fights I'm sorry to say. Jeez Buchanan, you make it sound like I'm the next Godfather or something."_

Both Steves were the only ones to ever remember his name. For that they would always have his eternal gratitude. So Bucky did the most selfish thing he could think of.

Leaning down as quickly as he could before his nerve could get the better of him, Bucky placed a gentle kiss upon Steve's temple. Steve didn't even react, just kept on sleeping without a twitch. Bucky didn't know whether he was glad or disappointed by that.

With his final act done, Bucky teleported away.

_**o~o~O~o~o**_

On the other side of town in Upper Manhattan, one nineteen year old kid with a stack of regret letters, dozens of white lilies and a messaging machine stuffed with condolences threw back another shot of 90 proof whiskey.

Another glance at a wrinkled newspaper clipping in his hand and he poured himself another drink.

He threw back another shot.

The kid was about to down another bit of hard whiskey when suddenly he was yanked back by the scruff of his neck and thrown backwards into the crystal vases with an explosive shatter.

He was gasping for breath wondering what the hell had happened and if he was truly drunk enough to be hallucinating because a curly haired man in a baggy comfort sweater was stalking over to him like the devil himself. Half a squeak escaped his mouth before he was seized by the jaw with his mouth clamped shut with one impossibly strong hand. Eyes that looked too round to be anything but gentle were set into a razor sharp viciousness that didn't fit with the face. The man that clutched him seemed like a vengeful demon but he had to be human there was no such thing as the after life –

"_You_," the voice that issued from the man's throat could only be described as terrible and promise of inferno, "_hurt a very dear friend to me you filthy piece of shit!_" The kid was suddenly hurled into the bar he had been drinking at and his side exploded in pain at the impact. He flopped back onto the floor coughing and gagging the pain was so bad. "_He gave you comfort and you gave him scars!" _A sharp kick into his uninjured side and he thought that he damaged something he couldn't fix with a screw driver and a welding iron. "_You violated his trust when he only wanted to help you! Why the fuck would you even _think_ about hurting someone like Steve?"_

And then it all clicked into place.

He was about to confront his attacker with his strangled words when there was a sudden banging on the locked door to the living room/bar (and that would be the first thing that got fixed, giving her a skeleton key to everything).

"Tony!" the female cry was panicked and rightly so, even if she didn't know what was going on, "Tony what's happening? What are those noises? I heard breaking glass, Tony! Tony, let me in, tell me what's wrong!"

_Pepper_.

No way could Pepper be in the same country as that man that loomed over him, let alone the same apartment. "_She can't help you, shit head_," the man growled, hoisting him up by the front of the shirt, "_Nothing can help you now_."

"_Tony!_" Pepper was frantically pounding on the door and he could hear the sobbing, "Tony whatever happened, you don't have to follow your mom and dad! It doesn't matter – you can't just leave me! Please! Tony let me in!"

"_Are you gonna beg, trash?_" The man hissed and brought him closer to his face of pure rage, "_Are you gonna let her fight the battles you're in? Do you want me to take her down, too? It'll be cute, such a happy little couple of meat bags for the hellhounds."_

"You – " he coughed and gagged again on the blood in his mouth, "you leave her alone!"

Oh god, something must have been hit hard sometime during the beat up because the kid's head was swimming and it couldn't have been just the alcohol because he was feeling pretty damn sober at the moment. "It's me you want right? Leave her out of this!"

"_Like you left Steve out of it?_" the man spat, all sharp teeth and maniacal eyes at the look of utter horror that made its way onto the kid's face. "_That's right you fucker, I know about Steve!"_

"But I didn't do –"

_"You took advantage of him!_" The man rattled him so hard that the kid could feel his insides jolting into a frenzy. "_He is pure and you made him feel like he wasn't worth the mud on the bottom of his boot. He should never have to feel that way!_"

"I'm sorry!" Pepper's cries had stopped suddenly and he couldn't help but miss her but he kept on going, "I'm sorry I touched him, I'm sorry I treated him roughly –"

The bark that escaped the man's throat was nothing like a laugh. "'_Sorry'? You're 'sorry'? I hate to break it to you kid but sorry just ain't gonna cut it this time_."

The kid latched onto the hands holding him up by the shirt and tried to pull himself away. "Then what the hell am I supposed to do?"

The man quirked his head with a knife-like smirk. "_Hell? Hell doesn't seem like a bad place for you shit face."_

All at once the door burst open to reveal Pepper distressed and disheveled and wielding a metal bar stool that had attacked the locked entrance. "Tony!" Her eyes widened in panic when her eyes found the raging abyssal orbs of the man attacking him. "Who the hell are you?! What do you want with Tony?"

"Pepper no!" That damn kid flung his arms out at the man, "Don't you dare touch her!"

More expletives and a stunned red head who was named Pepper didn't hold Buchanan's attention liked the barely legible newspaper clipping he happen to glance at as it floated down from where the brat had let it go.

_**OBADIAH STANE CONVICTED OF MILLIONAIRE STARK MURDERS**_

Suddenly, Buchanan felt sick.

"You're Tony Stark?"

The kid stopped trying to squirm out of his grip and looked him dead in the eye to say, "Of course I am you psychopathic lunatic, just who the hell do you think I am?"

It happened at once. Buchanan's rage and hatred were cut in half but his disgust multiplied thrice. He dropped Tony's collar and stepped away to take a good long look at the quivering pile of useless meat that an old friend had bred.

And in his normal human voice because the demon was too good for him he said to the kid,

"Howard would be ashamed to be your father."

He didn't bother sticking around after the look of utter humiliation, horror and despair crossed the young Stark's face. He teleported out.

Bucky had a few things to do before he burned.

_**000000000**_

_**Okay, so, thoughts? Noises of despair? Happy squeals? Kitty cuddles? Anthing?**_


	6. Hello Darkness My Old Friend

A/N: Sup. Life's been…life. Sorry about the late update, but this chapter actually had some walls up before I decided that painting on them would be the best thing and then this happened. For those not in the Supernatural fandom – meh, you'll be fine. For those who are in the SPN fandom – they came, the saw, they didn't kick its ass but they did help.

P.S. Doubly sorry for the last chapter. I'm not sure where that came from to be honest.

P.P.S. Life is hard sometimes.

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't gain. Simply to entertain.

_**Warnings: Underage drinking, some violence, some creative cursing**_

_**Chapter 6: Hello Darkness, My Old Friend**_

_**Summer, 2011**_

"Tony, really, you need to stop –"

"Nope, you are going to take this phone and like it because I spent so much of my precious time and energy making it for you. You're going to hurt the cripple's feelings, Steve, c'mon, take the phone."

Steve sighed and picked up the touch screen phone with some more simplistic buttons so that he could work it from Tony's open palm. Steve turned the sleek device in his hand and couldn't help but think that it would have to go with all the other little devices and gifts that he's collected from Tony over the months because he couldn't really do anything with the things that Tony created. They were nice gifts, don't get him wrong, but they were just too darn complicated for Steve to work with.

After that one Night they had together…well, Steve didn't need an apology but Tony had just felt awful about it, had apologized and everything the second he saw Steve show up at the hospital when Steve had come to check up on his friend. Since then, gifts had started to appear in Steve's hands like the phone, things that Steve hadn't really thought about before The Night but could only shake his head and sigh about whenever they turned up afterwards. Tony felt guilty, Steve felt guilty about making Tony feel guilty…it was just a mess but after three months of Steve's convincing, he'd managed to get Tony to understand that he hadn't done anything wrong (really, honestly, Steve would do anything for the people he cared about).

Tony never believed him, but they didn't talk about it anymore. They were still good friends after all, since six shared college classes and a bit of loneliness will push anybody together. It was just…a little tenser than usual.

Steve looked into Tony's hopeful eyes and gave him a small, grateful smile. "Thank you for the phone, Tony," he said, tucking the phone into his jeans pocket, "I'm sure it's much better than the one you gave me last month."

"Is Tony giving you another phone?" Pepper, wonderfully coordinated and level headed as always, walked into the spacious and plainly decorated hospital room with a tray of food, presumably from the hospital kitchens. Since his parents death, Tony had gotten a bit more paranoid, and after the attack of that insane man, well, nobody blamed him if he only trusted Pepper and Steve to bring him things.

That man though, Steve knew as soon as he saw the description that Bucky had gone after Tony like he had asked him _not_ to, but clearly being a demon didn't help with any stubbornness. To spare the man trouble, Steve hadn't said anything and even if he did he was fairly sure that no one was going to believe that Steve didn't own his soul anymore.

"Yes I did in fact," Tony announced proudly, clearing his contraband mechanic equipment that he did…stuff with (Steve didn't know exactly except that the hospital didn't like it and that it made the machines that kept Tony' heart beating dirtier faster). "Do you want one, honey?"

Pepper just rolled her eyes at the equipment and set the tray of food down in the space provided. "Why not. It'll keep you busy until you need another project. It's better than having you down at the office _again_."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, dear," Tony said as he punched a hole through his juice carton, "clearly all those files needed to be digitalized anyways and a good Samaritan did it for you in only a few nights."

"A better Samaritan would be worried about his girlfriend's sleeping patterns when his heart can barely function on its own," the red head said gently, placing a tender hand on Tony's cheek to emphasize her point. Tony only turned his attention away from the juice and nuzzled into her palm, kissing it gently and murmuring something sweet and not at all like the Tony from a year ago.

Taking his cue to leave, Steve took up his jacket and slipped it on. "I'll leave you to your lunch then," he grinned at his friends to show that there were no hard feelings and waved away at the two of them when offered to stay. "I think I'll go try that new diner a few blocks from here instead of good ol' nutritional cardboard, I'm sure you understand."

Steve left with his grin intact at the squawk of indignity at getting better food that quickly evolved into a good natured tennis match of arguing between the fairly new couple. After everything the two had been through with Bucky's attack and Tony's parents death, it was about time the two of them realized that they needed each other the way no other person could provide. Steve was happy for them, really.

It was something good and beautiful to look at from something terrible, and that was something that Steve would never regret happening. No matter what it meant for him.

It was about three blocks walking from the hospital that Steve finally noticed that someone was following him. It wasn't the accidental 'oh, we're going the same way but went on the same path at different times' following but more like the 'they're stalking me with intent since every time I've stopped to make sure that they're not following me they stop at the same time too'. The person, a woman with fiery red hair and the slinky walk of someone with plenty of confidence, oozed fierceness and…and what was that? Some unidentifiable emotion that Steve couldn't place.

She had to be Bucky. Or, at least, someone from Bucky's background.

Taking the turn into an alleyway that was empty and settled plainly in front of a cemetery, Steve simply waited for the inevitable. Bucky liked to show up about six months after his last appearance and it was about the time frame that fit. He leaned up against the cool brick wall, watching the alley opening on the street where the warm early summer weather was eased off with the late spring breezes, playing with people's hair and teasing the ends of their clothes. It didn't take long for the woman to appear.

Bucky sure knew how to pick'em, that was for sure. She was small and beautiful but her body appeared to be coiled in tightly, like she was expecting to be hit or captured. Steve got up from the wall and stood in the middle of the alley, waiting. The red haired woman didn't smile, didn't relax, didn't even try to joke like Bucky would. She did, however, eye him up and down as she drew closer, evaluating him and judging him. Those eyes though, soulless and black and empty definitely marked her as a demon. Just not Steve's demon.

Okay then, not Bucky.

She stopped only a few feet from him. Steve took the first move and stood up straighter, "Can I help you?"

"Are you Steve?" she asked immediately and the first thing that Steve thought of was that she reminded him of a snake. Smooth, low tones, a predator air and the caution of a rattler. Steve stood his ground against her, and nodded once.

"As you can probably tell, I'm a demon," she continued in that same tone, like she was only a step away from killing him without remorse (not quite true – she was three steps away). "Buchanan sent me."

"Bucky?" Steve suddenly relaxed and tensed all in one odd moment, like his body was relieved to know that his friend was okay but at the same time bringing discretion to the forefront. Bucky sending a demon instead of talking to him personally? There was something very wrong about that. "Bucky sent you? He didn't send you to collect me did he, because he promised that he would take me down himself."

"He let you call him Bucky?" the woman seemed appalled at the news, scrunching her nose and eyebrows, "Are you serious?"

"Um, yes?"

The red haired woman only rolled her eyes and said something in another language that sounded suspiciously insulting. She then looked Steve straight in the eye and said in the same tone, "You're both idiots and you deserve each other. Here." From absolutely nowhere that Steve could fathom, she pulled out an old box and stalked forward to shove it into Steve's stomach.

Steve let out an _oof!_ of surprise and reflexively clutched the box closer to him. He glanced down at the box and stilled. "What did – why the – How the hell – why?"

"I told you that you're both idiots," the woman had taken a few steps back again and gestured towards the box, "that's you're proof on why. No if you'll excuse me, I have a job to do." The woman turned to stride away, but Steve could only reach out a hand from where his feet were glued to the pavement to beg, "Wait! Please!"

The woman halted in her tracks and turned to face him, eyes narrowing. "What."

"Where is he? He's not – is he in trouble? Is he alright? Where did he go? It's not because of me, is it? Because he's not taken my soul down yet?"

It might have been his imagination, but Steve could have sworn that the woman's eyes softened just a bit. "He's being detained," she explained, the factual sound in her voice off putting and mechanic, like she was reciting off of a script card. "He asked me to give that to you just before it happened. I owed him one, and that was what he asked. Stupid. And before you ask again, yes. It is because of you. He was stupid and fell for you Steve, he fell hard."

A squirmy feeling exploded in the blond's stomach and he didn't know what to do with it except ask the red haired woman, "He…he fell? For me? Like, as in, in _love_?"

The woman did not hesitate to roll her eyes again. "Love is for children and mortals. What I'm talking about is a form of protective instinct. It can arise in demons from time to time, whenever they've been around the humans for too long. I guess Buchanan must've taken a shine to you."

Steve was starting to feel light headed and his legs were beginning to lose their strength. "You don't mean that he's," Steve tried to steady out his voice but it still was too breathy and shaky to pass, "he's being _punished_. He can't have – he shouldn't be punished because of me! I'll go right now and he can-"

"It doesn't work that way, Steve," the woman snapped and faced him with all her supernatural deadliness, "You can't just switch places with him whenever you feel like it. I'd trade you for him in a second but the rules say that only the demon that contracted you can use forces to bring you down. No one else except the Crossroads King Crowley and he can only do that if he has your sacrifice, which you have right there in your hands."

"Then take it!" Steve's feet finally listened to him and he stumbled forward with the box outstretched to give it to the woman, "Let me trade places with him, it's only fair. He's too kind to just get punished for saving my sorry ass."

The woman took a few steps back but continued in her harshness, adding ice to her voice, "No. He wanted you to live and was willing to trade places with you in Hell just so you could do it. I'm not going to let you just throw that all away."

Steve's heart stopped. It legitimately, honestly, entirely stopped as soon as the words hit him. "He took my place? He's being…tortured and oh my god. _He took my place_." Steve stumbled back until his back hit the grainy brick wall but it no longer felt cool or warm or anything. Just hardly there at all, even as he slid down it to the dirty ground. "_He shouldn't have to do that_."

"No, he shouldn't have," the woman marched over until she was kneeling in front of Steve who was pretty sure was seconds away from an asthma attack, "But he did it anyways. Because for whatever reason, he liked you Steve. He liked you a lot. Now don't you dare waste what a precious gift he gave you. Do everything right in your life and _maybe_ you'll have earned what it was that he gave you. But do not ever come near a demon with your soul again, or so help me I will burn you where you stand. Do we understand each other?"

Steve didn't even need the threat. He just nodded and felt his airways begin to close up, forcing his air to be thin and constricted. Even then he forced out, "But he doesn't _deserve_ that!" At the end of his rope, Steve scrambled through his jacket pocket until he uncovered a plain inhaler and sucked in that life saving medication. The woman was still there, watching as Steve gasped for air. Steve looked her dead in the eye with nothing short of determination and she almost had to lean back from the shear force of it. "Who are you?" he panted when he could spare the air, "What's your name?"

Taken aback was the only expression she had, even if it was just widening eyes and raised eyebrows. "Natasha," she said with only a half a second's hesitation.

"Natasha," Steve's voice was nothing but earnest and the demon could almost feel herself bending for the human when he said, "Tell me how I can save Bucky."

Natasha scoffed and whirled away gracefully to stand above Steve like he was both an idiot and a savior. "You want to help Buchanan? Look at that box and don't let his sacrifice be in vain." Before Steve could beg for her help, she disappeared, just like Bucky could. One second she was there and a half a second later she was gone like she'd never been there at all.

And Steve, well. Steve could only just sit there in a sort of stunned stillness, like the one thing that he really wanted was right before him and was snatched away at the last second. In hindsight, it kind of was in an odd, realization smacking him in the face sort of way.

Bucky cared about Steve, for whatever reason. And Steve knew that he'd always had a little crush on Bucky, even back when he was just Buchanan. The reason why had never really bothered him, since he figured that it was because Buchanan had been unnecessarily kind towards him and saved him and his mother. But Buchanan towards Steve…just why?

Steve looked down at the box he continued to clutch in his hands with a sort of dazed expression and could only think, _Mr. Bottlebee will know what to do_. He got up, wobbling where he stood, and was nearly out of the alley before it hit him that Mr. Bottlebee was dead. _Buchanan was there to help with the pain_. But he still needed his mentor and went to the next best thing.

The grave.

All things considered, it was a nice graveyard, very clean and old with worn down headstones that had been shaved down by the years right next to some that were gleaming in their newness. Mr. Bottlebee's was only a small headstone, since in his will it said that he didn't want anything fancy. Just his name, his birth date and his death date and one quote that he always said to Steve.

Steve read it aloud as he knelt beside the grave, "_If you're going to do anything, do the thing that you will not regret. That's the key to a satisfying life_."

Steve leaned up against the headstone for support as he stared at the box in his hands in both wonderment and apprehension. It hadn't changed at all since he was a little boy those thirteen years ago. It was still a plain wooden box with the nick in the side where something of somewhat happened that Steve just couldn't remember. He could almost hear Mr. Bottlebee in the after life to _just get a move on, the faster you do it the sooner you'll know it_, and he'd never been able to fight against Mr. Bottlebee's direct orders. He opened the lid.

Inside was a lock of lanky blond hair lighter than it was now. Ten tin soldiers were all lain in a neat little row when he could remember tossing them in as a panicked child. A photograph, a little more work around the edges was placed at the bottom. Herbs tied in twine were above the soldiers but inside was more than just old memories.

Steve's fingers trembled as they picked up a plain vanilla envelope on paper older than Steve had seen before, faintly yellowed and aged smelling. The ink though, Steve could see by the darkness that the ink was new. It said, in neat straight handwriting _STEVE_.

He only hesitated for a moment before gingerly opening the envelope to see paper of a similar make to the envelope inside. The handwriting was the same neatness, but more careful while at the same time more liberal in its length. He had been writing something well thought out, but he had to do it in a hurry. Steve only unfolded the papers delicately, like they would crumble in his hands if he didn't treat them as such.

_Dear Steve,_

_I hope that this letter finds you well, and that you are safe from Natasha's fury. I know she can come off as a little rough around the edges, and she is, but she means well so don't take what she says too seriously._

_I need you to know something. It's the whole reason that I did this actually –_

No no no nonono_nonononoNONONO!_ This couldn't be – it _can't be_ Bucky's note. Demon's lived forever, _they don't leave notes_.

Steve could feel his airways constricting again and dug out his inhaler for a few pumps. He couldn't even look at the letter, just Mr. Bottlebee's headstone.

"He can't just," Steve flapped the hand that let go of the papers uselessly, "he _can't_. I don' know, just, why? He shouldn'tve – oh goddamnit Mr. Bottlebee I wish you were here. I really, really, wish you were here." Steve leaned more heavily on the sun warmed headstone for support. It took another minute before Steve got up the courage to continue reading the letter.

_I need you to know something. It's the whole reason that I did this actually, so feel free to call me crazy after you've read the whole thing, got it? Okay, so here it goes._

_You are too wonderful for this world._

_Crazy, right? We've been in each other's company for a consecutive 24 hours and it feels like I've known you my whole life. I think that it's because you remind me of someone I loved very much a long time ago. You might remember that my best friend's name was Steve, from that time we first met at the crossroads? Probably not, you were only a little kid back then, but I remember that night like it was yesterday._

Steve did too. He would always remember that night, but what was Bucky getting at?

_I remember this little tiny child that you were, all skin and bones and more dead than alive. I couldn't believe it when I first saw you – I actually thought that you were a ghost trying to contact me! It hadn't been the first time, so I played along._

_And then you were real. That tiny ball of light, you were real. Your soul was just so bright, I couldn't believe that you were alive! And then when you asked to sleep, I guess I just had a soft spot for that light. It hasn't changed since that day, every time I see you it's just that same pure soul, like all you did was grow into it._

_But I guess, that's only part of the point. I guess just – this is still hard for me to talk about even in letter form, okay? Just bear with me on this._

_What I'm trying to say is, is that you are like the Steve that I lost way back when. It's like you're my Steve, my best friend Steve, like some kind of reincarnation or rebirth or some hippy shit like that. You don't understand how happy that made me when I realized this! It was like my best friend had come back from the grave so that we could have a few stolen moments together after everything was said and done. It was seriously, a dream come true. Sure you weren't the exact same, I knew that from the start. But you just looked so like him and had the same eyes and had that exacted same damned stubbornness. I didn't stand a chance._

_But it was all so confusing too._

_I'm a demon. Demon's need to be doing their job or they go on the rack, that simple. But every time I saw you, I just couldn't help myself. I couldn't just__ couldn't__ take you down to the pits. It was like my instincts were telling me to go left and right at the same time at a North-South direction. It just didn't make any sense! I needed to take you down, but at the same time I just couldn't. _

_Then, came every time I saw you, I just kept finding another excuse not to take you with me. You were too young, you were too miserable, you wanted to go down, whatever. But I think one of the biggest reason's I never took you down was because of something really simple that you don't even think is that big of a deal._

_You remembered my name!_

_No one before had ever bothered to learn it. Hell, you kept feeding me like the wonderful idiot that you are because you were being polite. Angela raised you right, that's for sure. But you have the kindness that my Steve had, before he died. He was the only one to remember my name back then, too._

_It lifted off from there. Every time I saw you grow up a little bit more made me like you more. I guess it was when you cried on me that I might have loved you the first time. The second time I mean, although the first time I did realize that you were important and special. Don't expect sappy feelings Steve, I'm no poet._

_But, I guess you deserve a run down of who I was before all the supernatural devil demon hocus pocus. I left some photos with you, but here's what I used to be:_

_I used to be a sniper in the Second World War. Picking off Nazis, saving the day from the shadows, all that jazz. I was good at my job, always had been and always will be. But my best friend Steve, well, he was the same as you were, all fire made of sticks and the temper of a match. I tried to make sure that he stayed in Brooklyn where we both grew up, but being the idiot that he was he followed me. (Oh yeah, I grew up with Steve in Brooklyn like you. Weird, right?)_

_Anyways, to make a long story short, during D-Day we were both shot. It was months of pain for my Steve and his girl Peggy, who was this British dame that loved Steve almost as much as I did. He loved her back just as much, but I like to think that he still __lo__ liked me better. We both watched as Steve slowly got better, then worse, then better, and then worse again until he wasn't getting any better. On December 17__th__, 1944, at the age of nineteen, my Steve died. I was right there beside him when he passed. Peggy was off doing her spy thing, but I was there for the very end._

_The nurse there, she held me and told me that she could make it all better. I believed her enough where I didn't care that I would sell my soul to the Devil for Steve. If I had to go back and do it all over again, I would do it again without a second thought. It brought Steve back to me, and I still don't regret it to this damn day._

_To make another long story short, Steve got the girl, Peggy got her man, and I got to be best man at their wedding and godfather to their two kids that they had while I was still around. Life was good._

_Once my ten years were up I went kicking and screaming like a wild dog because I just couldn't leave them behind. I think I loved Steve._

_No that's not right. I __know__ I loved Steve. Don't get me wrong, I loved Peggy and the kids too, but I loved Steve with everything I had. I didn't tell him that and I only said goodbye an hour before, but it still didn't feel like enough of a goodbye._

_Then I got to say goodbye to you. I was going to bring you down to Hell you know, every time I saw you. I couldn't though. I didn't want to say goodbye again._

_And then we had that last goodbye. You might not have known it, but I did. And this time, I get to say goodbye like I should've back then._

_Steve Rogers I love you. Goodbye. Do something good with your life and don't be a hero and come after me. Don't even try it, I know you'll think about it._

_I don't regret this decision anymore than I did the one before. I love you, Steve, because you are good. You are selfless and you are light. Live the good life._

_Sincerely Yours, Forever,_

_James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes_

Steve's eyes were blurry at the end. Everything kind of just, fell apart.

He cried. He bawled, he heaved out sobs, he did whatever form of crying that a human being is capable of. People who came to visit their own loved ones in the cemetery gave him a wide berth, assuming as people were wont to assume. It was a hot, humid afternoon before Steve finally just stopped. No particular reason, he could've kept crying some more but that wouldn't have helped anything. It wouldn't bring Bucky back.

Steve carefully folded up the letter and placed it back into the envelope and back into the box before finally facing the photos, all of them black and white.

The first was of two soldiers with their arms around each other while facing the camera, both of them filthy with dirt and sweat. One was clearly Bucky, an amazing grin stretched across his face that Steve had never seen before. He was looking down at a smaller man that really did look like a walking skeleton, skin stretched too thin and bones too prominent. But he was laughing at something that Bucky had said, turning away like he was embarrassed at finding something so hysterical.

The second looked a few years after the first, with a beautiful woman on the skinny one's arm smiling like she didn't do it often and the skinny man held onto her hand like it was made of something precious. Bucky stood on the skinny man's other side, one hand on his shoulder and smile that didn't quite reach all the way.

The third was of a small family with children with the skinny man and the woman in front of a house in the city somewhere. The man and woman stood next to each other and looked into the camera with grins and triumph, for what Steve could not say. Bucky was there too, cross legged on the ground with a little boy and a little girl in his arms with their tiny arms thrown around his neck, gripping on for dear life. They appeared to be giggling and squealing, massive grins threatening to engulf their little faces. Bucky's face though, it was nothing short of breath taking in his happiness, head thrown back in laughter.

The fourth one was of two teenage youths which Steve could recognize as the skinny man from the other pictures and a young Bucky, dapper and dressed to go out. Bucky's arm was thrown out to draw his friend closer with a glowing grin that Steve never had the chance to get acquainted with. The skinny man was smiling shyly, his twig of an arm wrapping around Bucky's waist since he couldn't reach any higher. Where they went later in the evening Steve didn't know, but Bucky's excitement was almost palpable through to the future while the skinny man's was almost resigned.

And then the last one. The last one was the most worn out on the edges, the most thumbed over and the most cared for of all of the photographs. It was the oldest looking, two young boys who couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen. They were clinging onto each other to keep themselves upright in their laughter, hair blown five different ways and clothes ripped in some places and patched up in others, scraped knees easily visible from their shorts. The dark haired one had to be Bucky, a mischievous glint to his eye that Steve was familiar with. The skinny one hardly came up to Bucky's shoulder, but his beaming face was just as bright, even though Steve could tell that he looked a little green. Probably from that Coney Island ride in the back, the Cyclone. Steve didn't know why he knew, but he could just tell that the skinny one had just thrown up everywhere when Bucky had wanted a picture to commemorate their time together.

Steve looked over the photos again and again and again until he couldn't even see the differences anymore between them from lack of light. Steve looked up and saw the that the sky had grown dark and the full moon that had been supposed to appear that night was blocked out by smoky clouds and misty perspiration. He quickly stowed the pictures in the box and the box under his jacket as the first drops of rain began to fall.

Steve ran all the way to a shifty bar he knew was only a few blocks away from the cemetery, his hair dripping wet and down his back in icy rivulets that Steve couldn't quite feel. The people already inside didn't even spare him a glance, just kept their eyes to whatever they were doing or were talking to. Steve in return didn't pay them any mind and immediately sat down at the end of the bar, where the bartender only glanced at him and murmured "On the house," under her breath before sliding a large glass of something potent smelling before returning to wiping down the counter and polishing glasses.

Steve could only mutter a vague thank-you before throwing back a small swig of whatever was in the glass. The fire hit him like a freight train and he almost gagged on the power of the alcohol but forced it down anyways. Alcohol was supposed to help in situations where you found out that someone close who loved you was never going to see you again, right? That's why people used something so terrible, why they would drink glass after glass of a liquid that tastes disgusting and then go driving afterwards to crash into another driver who would then swivel away into more cars, ones containing children and parents and grandparents. Leaving only two of them to survive.

Steve took another, more cautious swig of the alcohol.

The box was in front of him now, he couldn't say when he did that. He popped the lid back and picked up the little bundle of herbs that had rummaged their way to the top. Steve took a long breath of the dried plants, and it sent prickles of heat back into his eyes when he realized that they smelled like Buchanan. Like Bucky.

Steve didn't hesitate for another swig.

"You really shouldn't be downing something like that when you're that depressed." Steve could finally feel the fuzzy warm feeling of the alcohol finally kicking in when he heard a gravely voice. He turned and the room turned a little bit with him, but that didn't stop his eyes from landing on a beautiful man, gruff in his demeanor and plaid clothes and a bit scruffy everywhere, but he was just so _beautiful_, Steve couldn't really believe it.

"Are you an angel?" Steve must've been more drunk than he thought, because those were the first words out of his mouth. They came out perfectly clear though, so Steve was either a precise sort of drunk or completely wasted and didn't know it yet. It was his first drink at a bar, he couldn't know if that was how he was going to react or not.

The man only snorted out a short laugh that could've been flattered or vaguely offended, Steve didn't really know. "Nah kid, I'm as human as they come. But you look like you might need a hand there."

"Maybe." Steve looked at the glass and to his horror and humiliation it wasn't even half empty. "I think I just need to forget."

"I hear ya," the man settled into the seat next to Steve and took a sip of the beer he was nursing, "We all need a break from reality sometimes."

"I don't want to be alone right now," and _wow_, Steve must be one of those honest drunks because he certainly wouldn't have said that to a stranger if he was sober. "I'm sorry, you probably have your own problems –"

"Yep," the man popped out the 'p' as he took another sip of his drink. He didn't look at Steve as he said, "but you look like you're even more lost than I am and sometimes it makes me feel better knowing that I'm not the only person in the whole world having problems." Steve let out a scoff but didn't deny the feeling. Solidarity in misery, that's how most people operated. The man looked at Steve again and said, "I'm Dean."

"I'm Steve," and Steve took a small sip of the alcohol and was properly prepared for the burn that wasn't as severe that go around. "It's just – crazy things happened and I can't fix them now and now I'll never be able to fix them."

"Why's that?"

"Because he and she and they _both_ told me not to try and fix anything! They want me safe, or at least he does, I'm pretty sure that she couldn't care less. I mean, just, _demons_ they think they know everything just because they've been around longer than just a mere mortal –"

"Whoa hold up," Dean held up a finger and looked him dead in the eye, all seriousness, "did you just say _demons_? We're not just talking cranky people here kind of demons?"

"No," Steve mumbled and looked into his glass and wow the liquid was clear who knew that something so innocent looking packed such a punch, "Real life black-eyed soulless _jerks_. I want to save my Bucky and they won't _let_ me, say that they did all that for my sake and that I should be grateful. Well fuck them both, I'm going to save him anyways!"

Steve made for downing another swig but was stopped halfway there by a strong callused hand. "Whoa there Steve, let's talk about this some. You want to rescue something called a bucky from demons, let's emphasize the word demons for a second, and you think that you can do that. Really."

"Not a what, a who," Steve said earnestly, looking into Dean's green, oh wow very green, eyes, "Bucky is my demon, the one I promised my soul to a really long time ago and he kept coming back to take it and I kept trying to give it to him but he never took it! And then I get today where I found out he switched places with me in Hell and told me not go save him but I'm going to, screw what he said because he gave me this amazing love letter that's not quite a love letter and you know what I really like him too so I'm gonna go an' get him and –"

"Easy, easy there big guy," Dean placed a firm hand on Steve's shoulder and Steve could have sworn that his eyes widened a bit at the contact. Why were people always surprised when they found out he had muscle? "Because you hide it under all your clothes," Dean answered.

"Dang it, I'm talking my thoughts aren't I?"

"It happens when you're drunk," Dean smirked and took a sip of his own drink. "But that's not the point. So let me get this straight – you sold your soul to a demon named Bucky, Bucky fell for your all American good looks and decided to trade places with you in Hell and left you a love note and a standing order not to go after him."

"Yeah, pretty much."

Dean was silent and just watched him, disbelief and some other emotion struggling to make itself known on his handsome face. "That is…maybe almost as weird as some of the stuff I've been through."

"Yeah, like what?"

"For starters my angel is now a god and I have to save him from himself or else the whole world might explode like a Wiley Coyote cartoon."

Steve watched Dean gulp down a generous amount of alcohol and order another beer from the bartender. "That's rough buddy."

"Yeah, no kidding. But that's not the point." Dean was serious again, "You have to decide whether a demon is worth your time, which they aren't let me tell ya, or you can move on with your second chance at life and hope it works out for you this time."

Steve looked down at the herbs still clutched in his hands and glanced up at Dean from the corner of his eyes, "Like it did for you?"

Dean's new beer already had an impressive dent in it, but he still looked sober as ever as he answered, "No. No, I just hopped right back into the life I left behind."

"Why?"

"Because it's the only thing I know how to do, to make me…to make me feel like I'm worth something." Those green eyes widened to the size of saucers and he looked down at his beer, to Steve's waiting gaze, back to the beer. "Wow, you have some Jedi mind powers or something."

Steve gave him a small smile and looked at the open box, content on display but in such a way that nothing was really showing. "You talked to a total stranger and helped him decide something important. That automatically makes you worth something."

It was Dean's turn to look into his beer but Steve could swear that he saw a bit of pink growing on his cheekbones. "So you're gonna rescue a demon from Hell, huh."

"Yeah."

"How you gonna do that?"

"I dunno. I'll think of think of something. But I have to do something – Bucky's too important for that."

"The demon saved you, I get that you owe him. But why's he so damn important, besides all that?"

"I – I guess…I don't know really." Steve's eyes pleaded for Dean to understand something he didn't quite understand himself, "I just know that he means a lot to me, like he's everything that I want. And I don't know what that means."

Dean was silent for a moment, contemplating look on his face. Finally, he turned to Steve. "Can I kiss you?"

"What?"

"I mean it, it really puts things in perspective," Dean said, "The person you imagine kissing when you kiss a stranger is the person you want to be with. You don't have to, but it does help sometimes –"

"Yes." Steve was willing to try anything to sort out the confusion in his head, and something as simple as a kiss from a beautiful man wasn't exactly a hardship.

Dean didn't hesitate then, just leaned forward and whispered as he went, "Close your eyes and don't think about anything. The first face that sticks in your head is the one that you want here instead." Steve slid his eyes shut and let Dean kiss him.

It was warm, soft, unhurried. Nothing sexual, only sensual. But it still seemed wrong, like the lips weren't sharp enough and the smell was all wrong. Too much alcohol and gunsmoke and not enough

"Flowers," Steve said when he and Dean separated, although his eyes remained closed, "and fireplaces. It's," Steve's eyes snapped open when the face easily came to mind, the first one even after all those years of not seeing it, "Bucky."

"Then that's who you want," Dean said easily, a small smile coming to his face, "that's who you want when you're at the end of the line."

_I'm with you, til the end of the line._

Everything came together then. It wasn't rushing back or slamming him in the head like a wrecking ball or like running into a door. It was just like everything slid into place easily, waiting at the back for their turn to show up and take their assigned seats. All those _memories_.

_Brooklyn, when the war was on and everyone did everything they could to help._

_Not having enough to eat but being satisfied with life anyways._

_Sarah Rogers' death of consumption._

_His and Peggy's first kiss._

_Bucky getting hit by a truck only an hour after he last saw Steve._

_The birth of his children Sarah, Carter, John, and Angela._

_A car accident one cold night after a trip to a baseball game._

_Growing up again._

_It was all back._

"Steve?" Dean gripped onto the blond's shoulder, concern crossing his face, "Steve you okay? I know figuring out who you like is a little over loading but –" Dean's eyes shifted into something cautious. "What is it?"

"I know a lot more than I did when I first came into here, Dean," Steve smiled gently at the young man before him, easily in his thirties but still only a lost child. "Thank you so much for your help. I know what I need to do now."

Steve stood up steadily, confidently with years of being comfortable in his body instead of a slightly awkward young man that he had been. He collected up the box and tucked everything inside neatly, noting the look of confusion on his bar mate's face. "It's nothing to worry about, Dean," Steve said calmly, "There are just a few things that I remembered that I can do for Bucky now."

"What's that?"

Steve's smile, although sweet, was shadowed by the shear magnitude of fire, redemption and wrath beneath his blue, blue eyes. "Why, I'm going to Avenge him of course."

_**o~o~O~o~o**_

_**Okie doke, yeah, Chappie 6 yay! I really like comments and telling me what's right and wrong and what you guys liked about it…**_


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